Material Culture and Healing Practice

2021 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-290
Author(s):  
Anna Elizabeth Winterbottom
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Art History ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Medical Culture ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Practice Of Medicine ◽  
Late Nineteenth

Abstract The practice of medicine and healing is always accompanied by a range of paraphernalia, from pillboxes to instruments to clothing. Yet such things have rarely attracted the attention of historians of medicine. Here, I draw on perspectives from art history and religious studies to ask how these objects relate, in practical and symbolic terms, to practices of healing. In other words, what is the connection between medical culture and material culture? I focus on craft objects relating to medicine and healing in Lanka during the Kandyan period (ca. 1595–1815) in museum collections in Canada and Sri Lanka. I ask what the objects can tell us, first, about early modern Lankan medicine and healing and, second, about late nineteenth- and twentieth-century efforts to reconstruct tradition. Finally, I explore what studying these objects might add to current debates about early modern globalization in the context of both material culture and medicine.

Inca Aesthetics and Scholarly Inquiry

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Herring
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Narratives ◽  
Art Historians ◽  
Scholarly Inquiry ◽  
Andean Culture

This chapter discusses the interpretive challenges that art historians and anthropologists have faced in approaching Inca intellectual and artistic achievements, which do not fit comfortably in Western categories. George Kubler took up the question of Inca art in the mid-twentieth century, creating a space in art history for studying the Incas. This development occurred at a time when archaeologists such as John Rowe worked to place the Incas within the broader context of Andean civilizations, and structuralists like Tom Zuidema were beginning to challenge historical narratives in search of underlying elements of Andean culture. The scholarly interest in Inca art, material culture, and intellect was but one aspect of the Inca focus of that time, as artists found inspiration in Inca ruins and museum galleries in the United States, and other countries began to exhibit Inca artifacts as an art to be approached on its own terms.

Material Culture

Buddhism ◽  
2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Kieschnick
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Body Parts ◽  
Buddhist Art ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Traditional Art ◽  
Material Culture Studies ◽  
Textual Representations ◽  
The Subject

The study of material culture belongs to a relatively young discipline that examines artifacts as well as ideas about, and practices related to, artifacts, with artifacts defined as material objects created or modified by people. Aspects of research in material culture overlap with art history, archaeology, and anthropology, but studies in material culture approach the subject from a different perspective, focusing on areas not necessarily emphasized in these disciplines. Unlike traditional art history, material culture studies concentrate on the function of objects, devoting little attention to their aesthetic qualities, with more emphasis, for instance, on miracles associated with icons than on the style or iconography of icons; unlike traditional archaeology, material culture studies do not necessarily focus on extant artifacts, giving as much attention to references to objects in texts as to extant objects; and, unlike traditional anthropology, material culture studies often give great emphasis to historical development, often over vast expanses of time. While the field of material culture studies has flourished for decades, religious studies have been slow to recognize the importance of material things. Many areas of religion in which material culture plays a prominent role remain largely unexplored, including the place of objects in ritual, religious emotion, pilgrimage, and doctrine. Readers interested in the material culture of Buddhism will want to consult entries for Buddhist art, archaeology, and anthropology as well; in the entries below, the focus is on areas of material culture not necessarily emphasized in these disciplines as well as on studies within these disciplines that are especially relevant to the study of material culture. The term visual culture overlaps with much of what is considered material culture, but excludes objects associated with other senses, such as taste, smell, and touch, which are covered by the term material culture. The material culture approach is particularly well suited for exploring the qualities of particular classes of objects. What is it about relics as body parts that accounts for their appeal? Why are miracles so often associated with physical representations of holy figures and how do these differ from textual representations? How do clothing and food differ from language as a medium of communication? To highlight this aspect of research in Buddhist material culture, the scholarship listed below is divided according to type of object. At the same time, material culture studies also offer an opportunity to examine attitudes toward the material world as applied to a wide variety of objects normally separated by discipline. The doctrine of merit inspired the creation of a wide variety of different types of objects, and the monastic ideal of renunciation permeates many different areas of Buddhist material culture.

A Century of Theological and Religious Studies in Britain, 1902-2002

2004 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Great Britain ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Late Nineteenth Century ◽  
World Views ◽  
Historical Criticism ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Theological Thought

The chapters in this book give an account of how the agenda for theology and religious studies was set and reset throughout the twentieth century – by rapid and at times cataclysmic changes (wars, followed by social and academic upheavals in the 1960s), by new movements of thought, by a bounty of archaeological discoveries, and by unprecedented archival research. Further new trends of study and fresh approaches (existentialist, Marxian, postmodern) have in more recent years generated new quests and horizons for reflection and research. Theological enquiry in Great Britain was transformed in the late nineteenth century through the gradual acceptance of the methods and results of historical criticism. New agendas emerged in the various sub-disciplines of theology and religious studies. Some of the issues raised by biblical criticism, for example Christology and the ‘quest of the historical Jesus’, were to remain topics of controversy throughout the twentieth century. In other important and far-reaching ways, however, the agendas that seemed clear in the early part of the century were abandoned, or transformed and replaced, not only as a result of new discoveries and movements of thought, but also by the unfolding events of a century that brought the appalling carnage and horror of two world wars. Their aftermath brought a shattering of inherited world views, including religious world views, and disillusion with the optimistic trust in inevitable progress that had seemed assured in many quarters and found expression in widely influential ‘liberal’ theological thought of the time. The centenary of the British Academy in 2002 has provided a most welcome opportunity for reconsidering the contribution of British scholarship to theological and religious studies in the last hundred years.

The Final Bows

2020 ◽  
Vol 43 (2) ◽  
pp. 271-297
Author(s):  
Sara Hume
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Urban Areas ◽  
Source Material ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Popular Imagination ◽  
Early Twentieth Century ◽  
Large Head ◽  
Late Nineteenth ◽  
Folk Dress

Abstract How did people actually dress across rural Alsace from the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century? The image that fills the popular imagination of Alsatian dress during this period is of a regional costume, including a large head bow. This stereotype was developed and reinforced by intellectuals who documented and preserved these disappearing styles. The survival of this static folk dress obscures the actual transformation of regional dress into styles that more closely resembled those worn in urban areas. This study looks at rural costume in Alsace to understand its transition from distinctive regional dress into styles more in line with urban styles, by making use of a range of source material, including notarial acts, surviving garments preserved in museum collections, and photographs of weddings and other religious ceremonies. Comment s'habillaient les gens en Alsace rurale de la fin du dix-neuvième au début du vingtième siècle ? L'image qui nous vient tout de suite à l'esprit est celle du grand nœud noir. Ce stéréotype a été développé et renforcé par les intellectuels qui ont documenté et préservé ces modes en voie de disparition. La survivance de ce costume folklorique cache cependant la transformation qu'ont connue les habits régionaux, sous l'influence des vêtements portés en ville. Cet article étudie le costume rural en Alsace pour mieux comprendre comment s'est réalisée la transition des vêtements régionaux en vêtements dont le style était plus conforme à celui des villes. Pour ce faire, il utilise une variété de sources, y compris les actes notariés, les vêtements préservés dans les collections des musées, et les photographies de mariages et d'autres cérémonies religieuses.

scholarly journals Museums and indigenous memory: the Katxuyana’s collections and the contemporaneity of musealized material culture

2019 ◽  
Vol 17 (3) ◽  
pp. 494-509
Author(s):  
Adriana Russi ◽  
Astrid Kieffer-Døssing
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Indigenous People ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Indigenous Memory ◽  
Ethnographic Collections

Currently, ethnographic collections are at the center of a debate about the new meaning of museum collections, which questions the actuality of the preserved material culture. These issues also refer to the promotion of otherness and protagonism of the ‘collected people’ in museums, which trigger the interest of both researchers and indigenous people. The same is happening with the collections of the Amerindian Katxuyana. These collections count more than 700 objects collected by different expeditions at different moments in time and the collections have been preserved for more than 50 years in European and Brazilian museums. Despite this long timespan the objects are material records from everyday life, rituals and festive moments, and they reveal a little about the life of this people in the first half of the twentieth century. Some parts of these collections have been the source of dialogical experiences between researchers and Katxuyana in order to evoke memories and knowledge. This paper describe a bit about this course of approximation between Katxuyana and the collections.

Interdisciplining Humanities

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie Thompson Klein ◽  
Robert Frodeman
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Art History ◽  
English Word ◽  
Cultural Development ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Ancient Rome ◽  
Humanities Education ◽  
European Philosophy ◽  
Late Nineteenth

This chapter surveys the predisciplinary past and more recent inter- and trans-disciplinary developments in humanities. After presenting a snapshot of two disciplines—art history and music studies—it outlines the trajectories of two traditionally text-based disciplines, philosophy and literary studies. While the English word “humanities” derives from a cultural development beginning in ancient Rome, the formation of the modern disciplines in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was a watershed in this history. Counter-traditions of general and holistic knowledge persisted, but specialization in segmented discipline-based domains increasingly shaped the contours of humanities education and research—to the detriment of older, transdisciplinary elements. Over the course of the twentieth century, a number of developments fostered interactions across the disciplines, extending from the importation of European philosophy and literary studies to postcolonial critique. Today new interdisciplinary fields appear as well as fresh efforts at transdisciplinary cultural and epistemological transformations.

Incomplete

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug Bailey
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Human Behavior ◽  
Art History ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
The World ◽  
Late Twentieth ◽  
Late Twentieth Century

Holes are paradoxes of visual culture and human behavior. Difficult to define, alive with consequence, holes affect behavior in significant ways. This chapter examines holes as slippery, elusive, material, always absent, and as parasites (to surfaces). Starting with the author’s excavation of 8,000-year-old pit-houses from the Neolithic site at Măgura (Romania), this chapter investigates the complexities of holes and surfaces as philosophic entities, and then examines the cutting work of the late twentieth-century artist Gordon Matta-Clark. The approach taken is to juxtapose otherwise disparate examples and analyses from within archaeology, art, and beyond. Though immaterial objects, holes have relations and properties. They disrupt at subconscious levels, altering understandings of our place(s) in the world, and our relations with other people, objects, and institutions. By unpacking and closely redefining holes, one gains new perspectives and analytic tools for the study of human behavior, and the traces it leaves behind, that are applicable across the humanities and social sciences, from archaeology to art history, from anthropology to design and material culture studies.

Zen and Material Culture

2017 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Religious Studies ◽  
Multiple Audiences ◽  
History Of ◽  
Interdisciplinary Study ◽  
Tea Ceremony ◽  
Economic Considerations ◽  
Vast Range

The stereotype of Zen Buddhism as a primarily minimalistic or even immaterial meditative tradition persists in the Euro-American cultural imagination. By contrast, this volume calls attention to the vast range of “stuff” in Zen by highlighting the material abundance and iconic range of the Sōtō, Rinzai, and Ōbaku sects in Japan. Chapters on beads, bowls, buildings, staffs, statues, rags, robes, and even retail commodities in America all shed new light on overlooked items of lay and monastic practice in both historical and contemporary perspectives. Nine authors from the cognate fields of art history and religious studies as well as the history of material culture analyze these “Zen matters” in all four senses of the phrase: the interdisciplinary study of Zen matters (objects and images) ultimately speaks to larger Zen matters (ideas, ideals) that matter (in the predicate sense) to both male and female practitioners, often because such matters (economic considerations) help to ensure the cultural and institutional survival of the tradition. Zen and Material Culture expands the study of Zen Buddhism, art history, and Japanese material/visual culture by examining the objects and images of everyday Zen practice, not just its texts, institutions, or elite masterpieces. As a result, this volume is aimed at multiple audiences whose interests lie at the intersection of Zen art, architecture, history, ritual, tea ceremony, women’s studies, and the fine line between Buddhist materiality and materialism.

scholarly journals Collecting Haudenosaunee Art from the Modern Era

Arts ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 55
Author(s):  
Scott Manning Stevens
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Visual Culture ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Two Dimensional ◽  
Museum Collections ◽  
Works Progress Administration ◽  
History Of Collecting ◽  
Look Back ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Era

My essay considers the history of collecting the art of Haudenosaunee (Iroquois) artists in the twentieth century. For decades Native visual and material culture was viewed under the guise of ‘crafts.’ I look back to the work of Lewis Henry Morgan on Haudenosaunee material culture. His writings helped establish a specific notion of Haudenosaunee material culture within the scholarly field of anthropology in the nineteenth century. At that point two-dimensional arts did not play a substantial role in Haudenosaunee visual culture, even though both Tuscarora and Seneca artists had produced drawings and paintings then. I investigate the turn toward collecting two-dimensional Haudenosaunee representational art, where before there was only craft. I locate this turn at the beginning of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s administration in the 1930s. It was at this point that Seneca anthropologist Arthur C. Parker recruited Native crafts people and painters working in two-dimensional art forms to participate in a Works Progress Administration-sponsored project known as the Seneca Arts Program. Thereafter, museum collectors began purchasing and displaying paintings by the artists: Jesse Cornplanter, Sanford Plummer, and Ernest Smith. I argue that their representation in museum collections opened the door for the contemporary Haudenosaunee to follow.

A Hybrid New World... or Not?

2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-14
Author(s):  
Fatima Essadek
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Cultural Identity ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
New World ◽  
Cultural Practices ◽  
Cultural Transformation ◽  
Material Objects ◽  
Cultural Conditions ◽  
Cultural Pattern

During the last three decades, early modern scholarship has drawn heavily on twentieth-century theorisation to analyse the socio-cultural conditions in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. An example of such scholarly endeavours is the attempt to appropriate the concept of hybridity to explain the constitution of cultural identity. This article re-evaluates this critical trend by reviewing the model of hybridity in relation to early modern cultures; it simultaneously proposes the existence of another cultural pattern that is here labelled ‘cultural transformation’. The article also contends that hybridisation is more manifest in the domain of material culture: the ethno-cultural characteristics of early modern communities made them more receptive towards accepting and integrating material objects but less welcoming towards assimilating beliefs, values or cultural practices from other nations.

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