Multisensory Anthropology

2019 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-28 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Howes
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Review Article ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Not Given ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Multispecies Ethnography ◽  
Sensory Ethnography ◽  
Anthropological Theory ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
The Senses

The senses are made, not given. Multisensory anthropology focuses on the variable boundaries, differential elaboration, and many different ways of combining the senses across (and within) cultures. Its methodology is grounded in “participant sensation,” or sensing—and making sense—along with others, also known as sensory ethnography. This review article traces the sensualization of anthropological theory and practice since the early 1990s, showing how the concept of sensory mediation has steadily supplanted the prior concern with representation. It concludes with a discussion of how the senses are engaged in filmmaking, multispecies ethnography, and material culture studies as well as in achieving social justice.

scholarly journals Wonderful Things? A Consideration of 3D Modelling of Objects in Material Culture Research

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-113 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barry Molloy ◽  
Marina Milić
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
3D Models ◽  
3D Modelling ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Material Culture Studies ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
3D Digital Models ◽  
Archaeological Objects

Abstract The role of 3D modelling in archaeology is increasing exponentially, from fieldwork to architecture to material culture studies. For the study of archaeological objects the roles of digital and print models for public engagement has been much considered in recent literature. For model makers, focus has typically been placed on exceptional and visually striking objects with inherent appeal. In contrast, this paper explores some of the potential roles for 3D digital models for routine artefact research and publication. Particular emphasis is placed on the challenges this technology raises for archaeological theory and practice. Following a consideration of how 3D models relate to established illustration and photographic traditions, the paper evaluates some of the unique features of 3D models, focussing on both positive and negative aspects of these. This is followed by a discussion of the role of potential research connections between digital and craft models in experimental research. Our overall objective is to emphasise a need to engage with the ways in which this gradual development has begun to change aspects of longestablished workflows. In turn, the increasing use of this technology is argued to have wider ramifications for the development of archaeology, and material culture studies in particular, as a discipline that requires reflection.

scholarly journals The Place of Objects and Things in the Age of Materiality

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 494-502
Author(s):  
Martin Brückner
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Literary Culture ◽  
Object Classification ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Benjamin Franklin ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
The Status ◽  
Meaningful Engagement ◽  
The Way

Abstract This essay reprises the status of objects in relation to critical conversations that favor things and thing studies over other methodologies of material culture studies. Recent discussions have dismissed objects as passive foils that lack in meaning. Glossing the factor of representation, however, these discussions have also glossed over a factor crucial in shaping the way in which the distinction between objects and things is made accessible in theory and practice. Two examples taken from eighteenth-century American literary culture, an anecdote by Benjamin Franklin and a sales ad published by the Pennsylvania Gazette, illustrate how in the process of representation objects become imbued with significance that reaches beyond mere signification and object classification. Once conceived as ‘material signs,’ objects become participants in cognitive environments in which seemingly meaningless symbols foster meaningful engagement with materiality.

scholarly journals Radical First Contact: Bridging Astrobiology and SETI

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael P. Oman-Reagan
Keyword(s):  
No Value ◽  
Theory And Practice ◽  
Extraterrestrial Intelligence ◽  
Multispecies Ethnography ◽  
Anthropological Theory ◽  
Decolonizing Methodologies ◽  
Key Aspects ◽  
Life On Earth ◽  
First Contact ◽  
The Universe

Abstract for SOCIA 2018: Accepted October 2017The astrobiological search for life in the universe is rarely discussed in terms of communicative first contact, a concept often reserved for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). What are the implications for astrobiology of inheriting historical conclusions that there is no value in attempting communication with seemingly non-intelligent life on Earth? By imagining a radical first contact protocol, to bridge work in astrobiology and SETI, this paper challenges the assumption that certain forms of life elsewhere (those we might categorize as like microbial, plant, insect, computer, geologic, or other non-human forms and systems) can be eliminated in advance from attempts at communicative or cultural first contact. A radical first contact protocol asks that we push the limits of both our astrobiological and anthropological imaginations beyond the traditional scope of anthropological subjects and functional SETI-focused definitions of intelligence. By drawing on anthropological theory, ontological anthropology, multispecies ethnography, decolonizing methodologies, speculative fiction, as well as from fieldwork with astrobiologists and SETI scientists (Wright and Oman-Reagan 2017), this paper proposes how and why a radical first contact protocol might approach any potential life, broadly defined, as though it is also a potential intelligence, culture, or agent inviting communicative contact and moral consideration. By drawing on expansions of contemporary anthropology along with other theory and practice this project also aims to help scientists “step out of our brains” (Cabrol 2016) to build methods and insights which successfully bridge key aspects of first contact and the search for life in astrobiology and SETI.Keywords: first contact, ontology, multispecies ethnography, decolonizing, astrobiology, SETI, anthropology

The Changing Perception of the Five Senses

2020 ◽  
pp. 103-122
Author(s):  
Sara Benninga
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
17Th Century ◽  
Scientific Instruments ◽  
Peter Paul Rubens ◽  
Courtly Culture ◽  
Southern Netherlands ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Five Senses ◽  
The Senses

This article examines the changing approach towards the representation of the senses in 17th-century Flemish painting. These changes are related to the cultural politics and courtly culture of the Spanish sovereigns of the Southern Netherlands, the Archdukes Albert and Isabella. The 1617–18 painting-series of the Five Senses by Jan Brueghel the Elder and Peter Paul Rubens as well as the pendant paintings on the subject are analyzed in relation to the iconography of the five senses, and in regard to Flemish genre themes. In this context, the excess of objects, paintings, scientific instruments, animals, and plants in the Five Senses are read as an expansion of the iconography of the senses as well as a reference to the courtly material culture of the Archdukes. Framing the senses as part of a cultural web of artifacts, Brueghel and Rubens refer both to elite lived experience and traditional iconography. The article examines the continuity between the iconography of the senses from 1600 onwards, as developed by Georg Pencz, Frans Floris, and Maerten de Vos, and the representation of the senses in the series. In addition, the article shows how certain elements in the paintings are influenced by genre paintings of the courtly company and collector’s cabinet, by Frans Francken, Lucas van Valckenborch and Louis de Caullery. Through the synthesis of these two traditions the subject of the five senses is reinvented in a courtly context

“Mummymania”:mummies,museums and popular culture

1970 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmine Day
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Field Research ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Museum Visitors ◽  
Archaeological Ethics ◽  
The Public ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Museum Displays ◽  
Ancient Egyptian ◽  
Anthropological Study

This lecture presents the major findings of the first anthropological study of British and American “mummymania”, the public fascination with ancient Egyptian mummies, and its associated myth, the mummy’s curse: a belief that those who interfere with Egyptian tombs will be punished. The study incorporates museum-based field research, textual sources, film analysis and material culture studies. Originally lay critiques of archaeological ethics, curses were appropriated by the mass media, which reduced public sympathy for them by associating them with evil living mummy characters. Fictional mummies? abject traits later came to symbolise old age, decay, pollution, death and differencenegative concepts with which museum visitors now associate real mummies. Museum displays inadvertently remind visitors of stereotypes and museums may exploit stereotypes for profit or employ staff who elaborate curse myths. In my view, museums could do more to counter stereotyping by addressing visitors? predisposition to regard mummies with abhorrence and derision.

Living by the Sword

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kristen B. Neuschel
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social History ◽  
English History ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Prestige Goods ◽  
Material Culture Studies ◽  
French And English ◽  
Warrior Culture

This book sharpens the readers' knowledge of swords as it traverses through a captivating 1,000 years of French and English history. The book reveals that warrior culture, with the sword as its ultimate symbol, was deeply rooted in ritual long before the introduction of gunpowder weapons transformed the battlefield. The book argues that objects have agency and that decoding their meaning involves seeing them in motion: bought, sold, exchanged, refurbished, written about, displayed, and used in ceremony. Drawing on evidence about swords in the possession of nobles and royalty, the book explores the meanings people attached to them from the contexts in which they appeared. These environments included other prestige goods such as tapestries, jewels, and tableware — all used to construct and display status. The book draws on an exciting diversity of sources from archaeology, military and social history, literature, and material culture studies to inspire students and educated lay readers to stretch the boundaries of what they know as the “war and culture” genre.

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