ANTH 336(F) Material Culture: The Social Life of Things
From the odd trinket kept on the family mantelpiece to the offerings left at the Vietnam Memorial (not to mention the Wall itself), people feel the desire to commemorate and make physical many of the personal and societal events experienced in their lives. This is just one example of how material culture is a social creation. By examining the social aspect of material culture in both past and present societies, one gains a better understanding of what it means to be human in a world in which the importance of material culture appears to be increasing at an astronomical rate. This course explores the many perspectives from which anthropologists study material culture to expand our understanding of humanity. Material culture will be viewed from the perspectives of social anthropology (particularly with regard to issues of social memory, commoditization, and cultural representation in museums), prehistory and historical archaeology, the French ethnological school of technology, primatology (with regard to the material culture of non-human primates), and history of science. Each week a different avenue of investigation will be presented and discussed in seminar. Class format: seminar with high level of student participation. Requirements: weekly 1- to 2-page response papers and one final research paper. No prerequisites.