scholarly journals Materiality and the urban: recent theses in archaeology and material culture and their importance for the study of urban history

Urban History ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 44 (3) ◽  
pp. 564-573 ◽  
Author(s):  
KATHERINE FENNELLY
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Material Environment ◽  
Material Turn ◽  
Strong Position ◽  
Archaeological Sciences ◽  
Structured Approach

Half a century on from Ivor Noel Hume's reference to archaeology as the ‘handmaiden to history’, historical-period archaeology has come quite a way. From disparate origins, in anthropological approaches to material and rescue archaeology in North America, and industrial and buildings archaeology in Britain and Europe, the sub-discipline has coalesced into a structured approach to the recent past. Hume's comment is often misinterpreted as a critique of archaeology's supposed inferiority to history, yet his comment actually refers to the potential for archaeological material to inform historical narratives, fill in gaps and populate the histories of non-literate peoples with a material culture. Unfortunately, overlap between the two disciplines is still in relatively short supply. In light of the recent material turn in the humanities, however, as well as an increased interest amongst historians and geographers in engaging with material culture, archaeological approaches to artifacts, sites and built heritage are in a strong position to inform methods for examining the historical material environment. Collaboration is now not only necessary, but timely, and this review of theses is an attempt to further that potential for co-operation amongst those who study the past. The doctoral theses reviewed here explore changes and developments in the modern city from a material perspective, evidencing both the breadth of approaches and the potential for research in the arts and archaeological sciences to stimulate new studies across different disciplines.

scholarly journals Sie sammeln und sie tauschen. Schloss Ambras als Knotenpunkt eines europäischen Netzwerks kunstaffiner Fürstenhöfe der Spätrenaissance

2019 ◽  
pp. 301
Author(s):  
Ricarda Hofer
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Cultural Exchange ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Mutual Exchange ◽  
The Arts

This paper explores dimensions of cultural exchange, a research area that traces mutual exchange activities of various kinds in material culture, including portraits and statues, but also tools of everyday life. At the heart of this study is Castle Ambras, a centre of regional cultural exchange activities in Renaissance Tyrol. Since the days of Archduke Ferdinand II of Tyrol, its proprietors cultivated relationships with other European princes interested in the arts. As will be shown in this paper, various objects found their way to Tyrol as part of this cultural exchange – and can still be found in the halls of Ambras’ present-day museum.

scholarly journals Studije tehnologije i studije materijalne kulture: mogućnosti bliže saradnje na primeru koštanih artefakata

2017 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 703
Author(s):  
Selena Vitezović ◽  
Ivan Vranić
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Research Strategy ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Significant Shift ◽  
Faunal Remains ◽  
Technology Studies ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
Theoretical Perspectives ◽  
History Of ◽  
State Of Affairs

Bone artefacts are among the less thoroughly studied classes of archaeological material, especially in the case of particular periods and regions. The reasons behind this are not uniform. The most obvious and general are linked to the research practices of culture-historical archaeology, often neglecting bone artefacts, considering them not sufficiently attractive or informative. The most significant shift towards recognition of a set of potential information gained from bone objects was achieved in the framework of studies of prehistoric technology during the second half of 20th century, especially in the French archaeological school.  This research strategy raised a number of questions concerning the acquisition of raw material, modes of production and usage of objects, whose interpretative potential gained in power, leading to the increased attention paid to faunal remains in archaeological investigations. Yet this source of information on the actual details of relations between people and material culture, opened by technology studies, has not been sufficiently explored.  It may be suggested that the reasons are the narrow specialization of researchers and insufficient inclusion of the gathered information into the wider interpretive framework, various traditions and lack of cooperation among the national archaeological “schools”, language barriers etc. However, the main reason behind this state of affairs may be sought for in non-integrated theoretical perspectives and the lack of clearly articulated interpretive position of researchers seeking to apply the knowledge gained from technology studies, considering this strategy as an “objective, scientific method”, providing concrete answers clearly complying to the expectations of the dominant archaeological paradigm.The paper offers a critical review of a number of examples of application of technology studies in archaeology and possible directions of a more integrated and theoretically informed approach. One of the obvious solutions may be sought in the direction of another research strategy – material culture studies. The aim of the paper is thus to link these two approaches, whose theoretical foundations are not uniform today, but the history of the ideas and the mode of articulation of the basic theoretical assumptions indicate similar theoretical roots.

Post-Meroe in Upper Nubia

2021 ◽  
pp. 730-757
Author(s):  
Mahmoud El-Tayeb
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Pottery Production ◽  
Mortuary Practice ◽  
Blue Nile ◽  
Archaeological Material ◽  
Close Observation ◽  
Tangible Evidence ◽  
White Nile ◽  
Comprehensive Studies

Upper Nubia stretches from the Second Cataract upstream to the Gezira region south of Khartoum, including Sinnar-Roseires on the southern Blue Nile and Kosti on the White Nile, a distance of not less than 1,500 km. Close observation of the material culture excavated in this ample territory shows a subdivision of Upper Nubia into three zones after the Meroitic Period, in spite of the broad similarities within this cultural horizon. Aspects of regionalism are based on geographical and natural elements in addition to the variety of mortuary practice and pottery production, which are the main sources of information about the period under study. One of the major problems is the lack of organized comprehensive studies in Upper Nubia. Therefore, still debatable are the conventional theories on the Axumite and Noba invasions, while as demonstrated in this text, there is no tangible evidence for such theories in archaeological material. Still open for discussion is the term “Post-Meroe.”

Positionality and Performance: Staging Antony and Cleopatra for South African schools in the context of decolonisation imperatives

2020 ◽  
Vol 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Néka Da Costa
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Performance Studies ◽  
Antony And Cleopatra ◽  
Pedagogical Strategies ◽  
Short Supply ◽  
Children's Theatre ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Dialogic Approach ◽  
African Context ◽  
And Performance

Since the start of the #RhodesMustFall and #FeesMustFall campaigns in 2015–16, decolonisation has been a prominent topic in the South African academy. Yet practical guidance as to how one might start to apply decolonisation and transformation strategies tangibly, both in education and pedagogy – and, more precisely for the purposes of this article, in theatre and performance spaces – has been in short supply. By adopting a dialogic approach which prioritises the voices of her collaborators, the author contextualises and critiques some of the key creative, philosophical and pedagogical strategies employed while rehearsing and performing a school’s touring production of Antony and Cleopatra for the National Children’s Theatre in 2018. Shakespeare is a symbol of colonial and imperial legacies, and the relevance of his work in both English and Performance Studies curricula merits scrutiny, as does the way in which we discuss, teach, perform and value it. Through an unfolding acknowledgement of the author’s own positionality in relation to the text and its performance in a contemporary South African context, this article exemplifies some of the contradictions and productive discoveries of the Antony and Cleopatra process, in the hopes of contributing to a more action-based approach to decolonisation and social justice in practising the arts and in arts education.

Urban Achievement in Early Modern Europe: Golden Ages in Antwerp, Amsterdam and London. Edited by Patrick Karl O'Brien, Derek J. Keene, Herman Van der Wee, and Majolein't Hart. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. Pp. xiv, 361. $64.95.

2003 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 249-250
Author(s):  
Anne E. C. McCants
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Early Modern Europe ◽  
Urban Centers ◽  
Science Culture ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Modern Development ◽  
Modern Europe

This edited volume is the result of a series of interdisciplinary conferences and seminars sponsored by the Renaissance Trust between 1990 and 1995 to examine “Achievement in Intellectual and Material Culture in Early Modern Europe” (p. 3). Historians of science, culture, the economy, and architecture and urban design were brought together to reflect on the intersections between past achievements in their respective fields within urban centers, as well as on the transfer of those achievements from one urban place to the next over time. These scholars were also called upon to consider the connections between the findings of more traditional “case-study” urban history and the grand narratives of modern development and geopolitical conflict. All of the contributors to this volume agreed to address the same meta question: “Why do recognized and celebrated achievements, across several fields of endeavor, tend to cluster within cities over relatively short periods of time?” (p. 5). In a schema entirely consistent with the Braudelian paradigm of early modern development (Fernand Braudel, The Perspective of the World. New York, 1981–84.), three cities in particular were chosen as representative of these episodic peaks of early modern achievement: Antwerp, Amsterdam, and London in roughly the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries respectively. The chapters of the book are thus organized in groups of three, with one chapter devoted to each area of endeavor in each of the three cities, beginning with their material bases in economic growth and ending with high culture as exemplified by the arts, books, and scientific research and discovery.

The Material Culture of Kinishba

1939 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 314-327 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon C. Baldwin
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Present Article ◽  
Preliminary Report ◽  
Arts And Crafts ◽  
Previous Issue ◽  
American Antiquity ◽  
The Arts

The architecture and burials of the prehistoric pueblo of Kinishba have been presented in a previous issue of American Antiquity. The present article is a preliminary report of the lesser objects of material culture as represented by the pottery, stone and bone implements, ornaments, a few charred fragments of basketry and textiles, food, and ceremonial objects. The majority of these specimens are made from imperishable material. Clothing, sandals, baskets, various types of textiles, wooden implements, and other perishable materials have but a very short existence in open sites such as Kinishba. Hence the following description of the artifacts presents only a limited picture of the arts and crafts of these prehistoric people.

‘The Visual Availability and Local Organisation of Public Surveillance Systems: The Promotion of Social Order in Public Spaces’

2000 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 32-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mike Ball
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Video Surveillance ◽  
Rapid Growth ◽  
Social Order ◽  
Public Spaces ◽  
Surveillance Systems ◽  
Public Surveillance ◽  
Material Environment

The empirical focus of the research reported in this paper is the recent rapid growth in public surveillance systems. It is now commonplace in Britain for certain “public” spaces to have video surveillance and for some stretches of public highways to have “Gatso” speed cameras located on them. The visual availability of items of material culture such as surveillance systems is introduced as an analytical organising principal for delineating the study of objects within the “seen” world. It is argued that we inhabit a palpable material environment of objects which has consequences for and impinges upon aspects of our practical decision making.

Aspects of knowledge

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Intellectual History ◽  
History Of Science ◽  
Middle Ages ◽  
Cross Sections ◽  
Historical Period ◽  
Postgraduate Students ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
History Of ◽  
Literature History

This edited collection explores how knowledge was preserved and reinvented in the Middle Ages. Unlike previous publications, which are predominantly focused either on a specific historical period or on precise cultural and historical events, this volume, which includes essays spanning from the eighth to the fifteenth centuries, is intended to eschew traditional categorisations of periodisation and disciplines and to enable the establishment of connections and cross-sections between different departments of knowledge, including the history of science (computus, prognostication), the history of art, literature, theology (homilies, prayers, hagiography, contemplative texts), music, historiography and geography. As suggested by its title, the collection does not pretend to aim at inclusiveness or comprehensiveness but is intended to highlight suggestive strands of what is a very wide topic. The chapters in this volume are grouped into four sections: I, Anthologies of Knowledge; II Transmission of Christian Traditions; III, Past and Present; and IV, Knowledge and Materiality, which are intended to provide the reader with a further thematic framework for approaching aspects of knowledge. Aspects of knowledge is mainly aimed to an academic readership, including advanced undergraduate and postgraduate students, and specialists of medieval literature, history of science, history of knowledge, history, geography, theology, music, philosophy, intellectual history, history of the language and material culture.

Egypt in Roman Visual and Material Culture

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Caitlín Eilís Barrett
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
21St Century ◽  
Critical Review ◽  
Art History ◽  
Visual Representations ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Intercultural Exchange ◽  
Material Turn

This review article addresses current controversies and opportunities in research on the roles, uses, and meanings of “Egypt” in ancient Roman visual and material culture. Accordingly, the article investigates problems of definition and interpretation; provides a critical review of current scholarly approaches; and analyzes the field’s intersections with current intellectual developments in the broader fields of archaeology and art history. It is argued that research on Roman Aegyptiaca can gain much from, and is poised to contribute substantially to, (1) 21st-century archaeology’s “material turn”; (2) the construction of new interpretive frameworks for cross-cultural interactions and “hybridization”; and (3) increased attention to the relationships among artifacts, contexts, and assemblages. Roman visual representations of Egypt provide a rich testing ground for research on intercultural exchange, the lived experience of empire, and the complex entanglement of people, things, and images.

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