scholarly journals Slaves’ dress between representation and materiality

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 221
Author(s):  
Isabela Cristina Suguimatsu
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Social Barriers ◽  
Descriptive Approach ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Ideal

Since the 1960s the focus of historical research about dress and clothing turned from a purely descriptive approach to a semiotic one: researches have started aiming at the representations and tried to understand the symbols behind the objects. Resting on the so called material culture studies, the objective of this article is to conceive dress no more subordinate to the dimension of the ideal meanings, but rather as materiality actively used in the process of signifying and making of social life. In the article I try to understand the role of dressing for “being a slave” in eighteenth-century Brazil: a society that valued ideals expressed in European fashion, but imposed social barriers for accessing them – for the slaves wear the materiality linked to such ideals. O vestuário dos escravos entre representação e materialidade Desde a década de 1960, os estudos sobre a indumentária e o vestuário passaram de uma abordagem puramente descritiva para outra baseada na semiótica: buscou-se atingir as representações e entender os símbolos por trás dos objetos. Com base nos chamados estudos da cultura material, o objetivo desse artigo é pensar o vestuário não mais subordinado à dimensão dos significados ideais, mas como materialidade ativamente usada no processo de significação e conformação da vida social. Para tanto, busca-se entender o papel do vestuário na constituição do “ser escravo” no Brasil oitocentista: em uma sociedade que valorizava ideais expressos na moda europeia, mas que criava barreiras para o acesso irrestrito a esses ideais e para o uso, pelos escravos, da materialidade a eles associada.

Stone Tools

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rodney Harrison
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Stone Tools ◽  
Stone Tool ◽  
History Of Archaeology ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Old World ◽  
Material Culture Studies ◽  
History Of

The focus of this article is stone tools. The history of stone tool research is linked integrally to the history of archaeology and the study of the human past, and many of the early developments in archaeology were connected with the study of stone artefacts. The identification of stone tools as objects of prehistoric human manufacture was central to the development of nineteenth-century models of prehistoric change, and especially the Three Age system for Old World prehistory. This article draws on concepts derived from interdisciplinary material culture studies to consider the role of the artefact after being discarded. It suggests that it is impossible to understand the meaning or efficacy of stone tools without understanding their ‘afterlives’ following abandonment. This article aims to complement contemporary metrical studies of the identification of stone tools and the description of their production. A brief history of the stone tools is explained and this concludes the article.

At Home in Renaissance Bruges

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Julie De Groot
Keyword(s):  
Sixteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Social Factors ◽  
Religious Practice ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Domestic Spaces ◽  
The Rich ◽  
Rich Material ◽  
At Home

How did citizens in Bruges create a home? What did an ordinary domestic interior look like in the sixteenth century? And more importantly: how does one study the domestic culture of bygone times by analysing documents such as probate inventories? These questions seem straightforward, yet few endeavours are more challenging than reconstructing a sixteenth-century domestic reality from written sources. This book takes full advantage of the inventory and convincingly frames household objects in their original context of use. Meticulously connecting objects, people and domestic spaces, the book introduces the reader to the rich material world of Bruges citizens in the Renaissance, their sensory engagement, their religious practice, the role of women, and other social factors. By weaving insights from material culture studies with urban history, At Home in Renaissance Bruges offers an appealing and holistic mixture of in-depth socio-economic, cultural and material analysis. In its approach the book goes beyond heavy-handed theories and stereotypes about the exquisite taste of aristocratic elites, focusing instead on the domestic materiality of Bruges’ middling groups. Evocatively illustrated with contemporary paintings from Bruges and beyond, this monograph shows a nuanced picture of domestic materiality in a remarkable European city.

Memorialising Anson, the fighting explorer: a case study in eighteenth-century naval commemoration and material culture

2019 ◽  
pp. 133-150
Author(s):  
Katherine Parker
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
British Culture

An informative example of the conscious act of naval hero-making are the commemorative medals struck in 1768 by the brother of George Anson. Anson had died in 1762, so these medals were not only a memorial to his life, but also a deliberate attempt to control his legacy. What the medals include, and omit, offers a fascinating opportunity to examine what some thought worthy of commemoration in eighteenth-century British culture. This chapter uses the medals as a prism through which to examine the interconnections between naval careers, material culture, and the process of commemoration. In addition, the paper offers a revaluation of the historiographical role of exploration in the eighteenth century and re-positions exploration as an explicitly naval activity in the British context.

scholarly journals Avanços e limites na historiografia da legislação urbanística no Brasil

2001 ◽  
pp. 33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah Feldman
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Urban Development ◽  
Public Administration ◽  
Legal System ◽  
The United States ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S

Este trabalho tem por objetivo analisar a produção recente no campo da história da legislação urbanística no Brasil, procurando detectar avanços e limites para a reflexão sobre desenvolvimento urbano e práticas urbanísticas. O texto organiza-se em três eixos analíticos. Em primeiro lugar, procura-se situar os trabalhos no processo de disseminação de estudos da história urbana no Brasil, vinculando-os ao movimento de ampliação do território da história que ocorre na Europa e nos Estados Unidos, a partir dos anos 60, com a chamada História Nova. Em segundo, baseado em um panorama da produção recente, são detectadas as vertentes dominantes e emergentes nos trabalhos sobre legislação. Em terceiro, são discutidos dois aspectos que se configuram como lacunas na historiografia da legislação: o lugar ocupado pelas normas, a partir do momento em que idéias e práticas urbanísticas têm um espaço institucionalizado na administração pública; e o lugar dos pressupostos modernistas na legislação brasileira, visto que o movimento modernista formula a proposta de um novo sistema legal para o urbanismo.Palavras-chave: legislação urbanística; história; movimento moderno. Abstract: This paper analyses recent developments in the history of Brazilian urban legislation, pointing out the progress made and limits faced, as a basis for reflection in the debate on urban development and planning practice. The analysis is divided into three parts. The first relates the dissemination of urban historical research in Brazil to the expansion of the field of history which began in the 1960s with the "New History" movement in Europe and the United States. The second part sets out the dominant and emerging approaches to urban legislation. Finally, there is a discussion of two aspects that are seen as gaps in the history of urban legislation: the role of norms, as the ideas and practices of urban planning become institutionalised within public administration, and the influences of modernist ideas on Brazilian urban legislation, taking into account that the modern movement proposes a new legal system for urban planning.Keywords: urban legislation; history; modernist movement.

scholarly journals The charcoal forest: Ecology, aesthetics and the Anthropocene

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Niles
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Forest Ecology ◽  
Natural World ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Food And Agriculture ◽  
Food And Agriculture Organization ◽  
Cultural Persistence ◽  
United Nations Food ◽  
Shed Light

This paper explores the significance of local forms of knowledge of the natural world, especially the role of this knowledge in cultural coherence and persistence through time, and its consequent significance to the intellectual challenges of the Anthropocene. The text examines the activity of a master charcoal-maker and forest-manager in Wakayama Prefecture, Japan, who works within a landscape recognized by the United Nations’ Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) as a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage System (GIAHS)—a place of special cultural and agroecological value. Drawing on theories of the evolution of knowledge and material culture studies, charcoal is seen as embodiment of particular understandings of the agencies of the natural world. Attention to the various stages in the production and use of charcoal sheds light on the structure of this knowledge, especially on the important areas in which qualities of one field of activity are transferred to or become essential to another. These “overlaps” link what otherwise appear to be disparate fields of activity into mutually constitutive elements of a whole. They shed light on the dynamics of cultural persistence and indicate the diversity of forms environmental knowledge; they can amplify understanding of the nature of the Anthropocene.

Words or Things in American History?

2020 ◽  
pp. 15-34
Author(s):  
Steven Conn
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Social History ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Historical Sources ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Linguistic Turn ◽  
Material Culture Studies ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter uses John Kouwenhoven’s 1963 essay “American Studies: Words or Things” as a touchstone to examine the history of the relationship between material culture and the study of the past. Material culture studies promised access both to the history of those who left no written records and to a different kind of cognitive insight than could be gained from traditional historical sources. While this was of a piece with the development of the “new social history” in the 1960s, the chapter looks back to the early twentieth century to put Kouwenhoven’s call for the study of material culture in a longer historical context, and it traces what happened to material culture studies over the last half-century. The chapter suggests that despite its many accomplishments, the use of material culture remains on the edges of most historical work, especially after historians took the linguistic turn, which refocused their attention on texts rather than things.

Muck, Mummies and Medicine: Disgust in Early Modern Science

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-65
Author(s):  
Sarah-Maria Schober
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Early Modern ◽  
Modern Science ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Early Modern Science ◽  
History Of Emotions ◽  
History Of ◽  
Changing Role ◽  
Over Time

Abstract This essay shows that early modern practices that used human bodily matter cannot be – as hitherto – explained by the absence of the emotion of disgust nor as being conducted in spite of disgust. Instead, it proposes to read those practices’ changing history as part of the history of the ‘paradox of disgust’. Four case studies (on anatomy, excrement, mummies and skulls) demonstrate that disgust was highly productive: it attracted fascination, allowed physicians to fashion themselves, and was even believed capable of healing. Over time and for complex reasons, however, the productive side of disgust declined. Combining current approaches in the history of emotions and material culture studies, this essay sets out not only to propose a new narrative for the changing role of disgust in early modern science and societies, but also to explore how variations in settings and human intervention changed the way emotions were used and perceived.

Selling Time: Multiple Temporalities in the Promotion of Danish Design Classics

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders V Munch ◽  
Hans-Christian Jensen
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Research Literature ◽  
Philosophy Of History ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Hermeneutic Philosophy ◽  
Material Culture Studies ◽  
The 1960S

Abstract The promotion of design classics was established in Denmark in the 1960s, turning Danish Modern into a tradition, and today it is carried out through institutionalized discourses and multiple temporalities, as we show in the cases of the Wishbone Chair and the Vipp brand. There has been much critique of the canonization of design classics, but little research literature on the concept itself, compared to related concepts such as icons or retro. Drawing on theories from design historiography, sociology, material culture studies and the hermeneutic philosophy of history to examine ageing objects, temporal values and non-synchronicity, these cases sketch multiple layers of temporality, offering very different experiences and values depending on how much engagement, knowledge and time the consumer might be able to invest. That classics are mainly praised as timeless objects stands against a promotion loaded with temporal layers of age, memory and history.

Civil society

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jean L. Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Civil Society ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Critical Force ◽  
The State ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Political Community ◽  
Formal Economy ◽  
Role Of The State

In modern social and political philosophy civil society has come to refer to a sphere of human activity and a set of institutions outside state or government. It embraces families, churches, voluntary associations and social movements. The contrast between civil society and state was first drawn by eighteenth-century liberals for the purpose of attacking absolutism. Originally the term civil society (in Aristotelian Greek, politike koinonia) referred to a political community of equal citizens who participate in ruling and being ruled. In the twentieth century the separation of philosophy from social sciences, and the greatly expanded role of the state in economic and social life, have seemed to deprive the concept of both its intellectual home and its critical force. Yet, approaching the end of the century, the discourse of civil society is now enormously influential. What explains the concept’s revival? Does it have any application in societies that are not constitutional democracies? From a normative point of view, what distinguishes civil society from both the state and the formal economy?

scholarly journals ‘Eloquence and Oracle’: Tobacco in Eighteenth-Century Life and Literature

2021 ◽  
pp. 261-281
Author(s):  
Andrew Russell
Keyword(s):  
Eighteenth Century ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Actor Network Theory ◽  
Detailed Examination ◽  
Empirical Science ◽  
Cognitive Changes ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Literary Genres ◽  
Material Agency

AbstractIn a seventeenth-century play, tobacco argues for the superiority of its ‘divine breath’ in distilling eloquence and oracle upon the tongue. This essay argues that tobacco’s arrival on European shores is reflected in two distinctive eighteenth-century literary genres, namely ‘object’- or ‘it’-narratives and the ‘poetry of attention’. Such literary works reflect eighteenth-century interest in questions of ‘sentient matter’ and ‘material agency’ and the increasingly detailed examination of nature demanded by empirical science. Using concepts derived from material culture studies and Actor-Network Theory, and examples from the deep history and current landscapes of tobacco in lowland South America, this essay argues that tobacco’s transit from ‘New’ to ‘Old’ World brought with it some cognitive changes that may have had a hitherto unrecognized influence on Enlightenment life and literature.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document