A Taste for Home

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Toufoul Abou-Hodeib
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
European Culture ◽  
Private And Public ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Global And Local

A Taste for Home is a cultural history of the middle-class home in late Ottoman Beirut that is at once global and local. Focusing on the period from the second half of the nineteenth century until World War I, the book shows how middle-class domesticity took form amid changing urbanity, politicizations of domesticity in public debates, and changing consumption patterns. Engaging with postcolonial theory, works on material culture, and consumption and gender studies, the book uses the notion of taste in both its aesthetic and political sense to critique the idea of “Westernization,” showing instead how “Europe” and the “West” are actively produced as places of difference. The privileged place the home occupied in discussions over the nature of the private and public spheres turned it into a model for members of the middle class in Beirut attempting to create a cultural niche and seeking greater influence in society. They strove to distinguish themselves not only from the class above, but also from a putative Western or European culture. The idealized home was forwarded as a model where modernity could be localized and an “Oriental” identity could be cultivated. The book argues that this model was in no way hegemonic, and that even as the home served to discursively localize difference, taste tied its most intimate spaces to modern forms of urbanity and to globalized modes of production.

scholarly journals Plastic masculinity: How everyday objects in plastic suggest men could be otherwise

2017 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-186 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deirdre McKay ◽  
Padmapani L Perez
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Waste Materials ◽  
Innovative Design ◽  
Everyday Objects ◽  
Market Values ◽  
Sacred And Profane ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Ethnicity And Gender

Material things always make statements about people’s identities. For indigenous Filipino men, making baskets asserts identities rich in culture and in non-market values. This article examines basketry backpacks that were part of the pre-colonial material culture of ethnic groups known as Igorot. When made from rattan, these baskets are recognized as tribal art or heritage items. When made from plastic by contemporary artisans, they are problematic objects that subvert dominant constructs of masculinity. Featuring bright colours – pink, red and yellow – from the detritus of goldmining, these basketry forms point to the plasticity of masculinity itself. By working in plastic, their makers appropriate the cultural history of plastic to subvert the constructions of authenticity, class, ethnicity and gender, suggesting how masculinity could be otherwise. Here, plastic has a cultural potency of its own, with important implications for initiatives to manage or recycle waste materials or create innovative design. Because plastic carries its problematic history and malleability into the objects made from it in ways that reshape categories of meaning and subjectivities, plastic is never just a neutral substrate for artisans’ self-expression but the active co-producer of dynamic distinctions between sacred and profane, global and indigenous, that fold back in on each other.

Greek History

2021 ◽  
Vol 68 (2) ◽  
pp. 312-318
Author(s):  
Kostas Vlassopoulos
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
Social History ◽  
The Body ◽  
The Social ◽  
Greek History ◽  
History Of ◽  
Class Status ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Interactionist Approach

I commence this review with a major contribution to the social history of classical Athens. Athenian social history is traditionally focused on polarities of class, status, and gender; while these polarities were obviously important, it is equally significant to adopt an interactionist approach and explore the shape of encounters between people belonging to the same or different groups. Rafał Matuszewski has chosen to focus on the interactions and communication between male Athenian citizens: in particular, the various spaces in which those interactions took place, as well as the means of communication. As regards the spaces, he explores in detail the noisy streets, the Agora, the various shops, workshops, and places of commensality and entertainment, the baths, the gymnasia, and the palaestrae. This is an excellent synthesis of a large number of social spaces in classical Athens, which have never been explored in the same detail as, for example, sanctuaries and cemeteries. Equally fascinating is the second part of the work and its detailed exploration of the body as a means of communication, alongside elements of material culture like clothes, houses, and graves. The wealth of material that is collected and examined and the interactionist framework employed have the potential to revolutionize how we study Greek social and cultural history; it is to be hoped that Anglophone readers will make the effort to engage seriously with this important German book.

scholarly journals THE MERAH MOSQUE AND THE ASY SYAFI’I MOSQUE CONSIDERED AS LANDMARKS BASED ON THE LOCAL COMMUNITY’S RECOGNITION IN CIREBON’S ARAB PANJUNAN KAMPONG

2018 ◽  
Vol 2 (01) ◽  
pp. 17-34
Author(s):  
Ajeng Triwuri Widyastuti ; Giosia P. Widjaja
Keyword(s):  
Cultural History ◽  
Urban Design ◽  
Local Community ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
Architectural Elements ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Conducting Research ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Heritage Area

Abstract - The Arab Panjunan kampong serving as the research object happens to be one of the heritage areas of Cirebon Town. This urban kampong has certain ethnic characteristics typical of Arab quarters that make it unique, thus contributing to the rich cultural history of Cirebon. As a heritage area, it is important for this ethnic Arab neighbourhood of Panjunan to draw up an inventory of the specific architectural elements that are still traceable, such as the urban lay-out and its contents as well as the landmarks of this area observed from a physical-spatial angle. The aim of this research project is to find out about this kampong’s various architectural elements that are recognized as such by the locals. This will be the contributing factor in the process of determining which environmental elements can be classified as typical landmarks. The first step taken in the research conducted is field observation in order to establish the elements that have survived in the kampong, including the architectural, social, and cultural ones. The observation related to architectural elements has been identified in accordance with the theory concerning Elements of Urban Design as proposed by Hamid Shirvani in his book The Urban Design Process. The next step is conducting research using the Cognitive Method as applied to the kampong dwellers in Panjunan by way of sketched maps and guided interviews. The respondents, classified based on ethnic heritage (descent) and gender, were requested to describe the environmental elements in this ethnic Arab kampong as far as they could recognize or identify them. Those who experienced difficulties in describing the sketches were assisted by the researcher based on the stories that had been supplied. Based on the acquired data containing these environmental elements, the aspect of memories contained therein was studied by way of interviews linked to the Continuity Theory by Breakwell. Subsequently, an analysis was made of the basis underlying the recognition of these elements based on the Landmark Theory by Kevin Lynch, and classified based on the criteria drawn up by Eko Budihardjo. Through the analysis, it was discovered that Panjunan’s Merah Mosque and its Asy Syafi’i Mosque indeed qualify as as architectural elements that show continuity of memory, gaining validity as iconic elements or landmarks on the regional scale of Cirebon’s ethnic Arab kampong of Panjunan. Keywords : mosque, landmark, recognition, local community, Arab Panjunan kampong

Gustav Klemm, Cultural History, and Kulturwissenschaft

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter N. Miller
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Cultural History ◽  
German Culture ◽  
High Culture ◽  
History Of ◽  
New Material ◽  
Cultural Science ◽  
History Of Culture

This chapter examines a new material-based history of German culture and looks at how a study of material culture had since evolved into “cultural history.” It traces the history of culture in nineteenth-century Germany, at the same time puzzling out the ambiguity of such a category as it was applied during the period. Encompassing both high culture and low, the popular and the elite, cultural history has often seemed borderless and indefinite—leading even its admirers to “search” for it or to see it as a “problem.” The chapter then turns to a study of Gustav Friedrich Klemm (1802–1867), the most important of the cultural historians of the 1840s and 1850s. His General Cultural History (1843–1852) and General Cultural-Science (1855) are both significant works in the field.

Introduction

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
R. J. W. Evans
Keyword(s):  
World War I ◽  
World War ◽  
Habsburg Monarchy ◽  
European Continent ◽  
History Of ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Post War

The formation of Czechoslovakia introduced a remarkable novelty into the heart of the European continent after World War I. It was an unexpected creation and a completely new state, whereas its neighbours as successors to the Habsburg Monarchy either carried historic names and connections (Austria, Hungary, Poland), or were reincarnations of existing sovereign realms (Yugoslavia), or both (Rumania). Moreover, Czechoslovakia seemed uniquely to embody the ideals of the post-war settlement, as a polity with strongly western, democratic, and participatory elements. Yet Czechoslovakia was a historical construct, deeply rooted in earlier developments. It constitutes classic terrain for a study of the ‘nationalist and fascist Europe’ which emerged after 1918. This book deals with the history of Czechoslovakia and discusses Czech nationalism, along with the Czechs' relationship with Slovaks and Germans, Britain's policy towards Czechoslovakia, and gender and citizenship in the first Czechoslovak Republic.

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