scholarly journals Opponentinlæg: Valtonen, Hannu - From Commonplace to Curiosity – The Museum Value of two Messerschmitt Bf 109 – Aircraft at the Central Finland Aviation Museum

1970 ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Pasi Kesseli ◽  
Juhani Kostet
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Art History ◽  
Doctoral Dissertation ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Northern Flank ◽  
Northern Norway ◽  
War Economy ◽  
German Air Force ◽  
Museum Value

Staff officer Hannu Valtonen’s doctoral dissertation in museology ”Tavallisesta kuriositeetiksi – Kahden Keski-Suomen ilmailumuseon Messerschmitt Bf 109-lentokoneen museoarvo” (From Commonplace to Curiosity – The Museum Value of two Messerschmitt Bf 109 Aircraft of the Aviation Museum of Central Finland ) is based on three previously publis- hed works on Messerschmitt aircraft by the author: 1) Lapin lentokonehylyt. Yli 20 vuotta pohjoista lentokonearkeologiaa (Aircraft Wrecks of Lapland – Over 20 Years of Northern Aircraft Archaeology,1993), 2) Luftwaffen pohjoinen sivusta. Saksan ilmavoimat Suomessa ja Pohjois-Norjassa 1941–1944 (The Northern Flank of the Luftwaffe – German Air Force in Finland and Northern Norway in 1941 – 1944, from 1997) and 3) Messerschmitt Bf 109 ja Saksan sotatalous (The Messerschmitt Bf 109 and the War Economy in Germany, 1999). The dissertation is the first doctoral thesis in museology to be submitted in Finland, which must naturally be taken into account when evaluating Valtonen’s success in this venture and the scholarly significance of the study for museological research. The only comparisons are to be found in studies in ethnology and art history among other subjects, but there is no counterpart to Valtonen’s work in material culture studies . 

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.

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.

scholarly journals American Art Matters: Rethinking Materiality in American Studies

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-84
Author(s):  
Erika Doss
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Studies ◽  
Material Culture ◽  
Technological Process ◽  
Art History ◽  
American Studies ◽  
American Art ◽  
Keynote Lecture ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Material Turn ◽  
American Art History

Abstract The “material” turn has steadily gained currency in cultural studies and the humanities, with scholars increasingly attentive to theorising things and examining their presence, power, and meaning in any number of fields and disciplines. This essay stems from the keynote lecture given at the conference MatteReality: Historical Trajectories and Conceptual Futures for Material Culture Studies, held on March 23, 2017, at the Freiburg Institute for Advanced Studies, University of Freiburg. Focused in particular on the meaning of materiality in American art history and American Studies today, it opens with an examination of the factors of monetisation and mobility and segues to a consideration of more efficacious ways to assess, theorise, and critique the material turn. Two areas that are particularly relevant in terms of rethinking, and mediating, materiality in American art and American Studies are those of technological process and affect: how things are made and how things make us feel.

scholarly journals Animals in Saami Shamanism: Power Animals, Symbols of Art, and Offerings

Religions ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 256
Author(s):  
Tiina Äikäs ◽  
Trude Fonneland
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Interview Data ◽  
Spiritual Practices ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Northern Norway ◽  
The Past ◽  
Material Culture Studies ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Combine Material

In this paper, we study the role of power animals in contemporary Saami shamanism and how past and present are entwined in the presentation of power animals. In the old Saami worldviews, in addition to animals, spirits and sacred rocks (sieidi, SaaN) were also considered to be able to interact with people. Animals were an important part of offering rituals because livelihood and rituals were intertwined. Past “religions” are used as an inspiration for contemporary shamanistic practices, in line with one of late modernity’s core concepts, namely creativity. Present-day shamanistic practices can be described as ritual creativity, and they combine traces of old and new ritual activities. At the shamanistic festival Isogaisa, organized in northern Norway, these different roles of animals and ritual creativity become evident. Here, animals appear as spirit animals, as well as decorative elements on drums and clothes and as performance. In this paper, we combine material culture studies, interview data, and participatory observations in order to reflect the meanings and use of power animals in contemporary spiritual practices. How are traces of the past used in creating contemporary spirituality? How are animals and their artistic presentations entangled in contemporary shamanism?

Travelling Images

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Dahlgren
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Art History ◽  
Individual Case ◽  
Art World ◽  
Media Archaeology ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
The Social ◽  
Window Displays ◽  
The Individual

Travelling images critically examines the migrations and transformations of images as they travel between different image communities. It consists of four case studies covering the period 1870–2010 and includes photocollages, window displays, fashion imagery and contemporary art projects. Through these four close-ups it seeks to reveal the mechanisms, nature and character of these migration processes, and the agents behind them, as well as the sites where they have taken place. The overall aim of this book is thus to understand the mechanisms of interfacing events in the borderlands of the art world. Two key arguments are developed in the book, reflected by its title Travelling images. First, the notion of travel and focus on movements and transformations signal an emphasis on the similarities between cultural artefacts and living beings. The book considers ‘the social biography’ and ‘ecology’ of images, but also, on a more profound level, the biography and ecology of the notion of art. In doing so, it merges perspectives from art history and image studies with media studies. Consequently, it combines a focus on the individual case, typical for art history and material culture studies with a focus on processes and systems, on continuities and ruptures, and alternate histories inspired by media archaeology and cultural historical media studies. Second, the central concept of image is in this book used to designate both visual conventions, patterns or contents and tangible visual images. Thus it simultaneously consider of content and materiality.

scholarly journals Return and Repetition: Methods for Material Culture Studies

2017 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 43-59
Author(s):  
Kate Smith ◽  
Leonie Hannan
Keyword(s):  
Material Culture ◽  
Art History ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
Culture Studies ◽  
Material World ◽  
Material Culture Studies ◽  
New Research

Repetition has long been an important tool in such fields of humanities research as literary studies and art history, in which scholars repeatedly return to texts and images to develop critically engaged understandings. Historians also need to adopt repetition as a distinct methodology, particularly in relation to the material world. Repetitive engagement with the material world has the potential to open up new research avenues for historians, through a greater awareness of the questions prompted by things. It also provides a means of developing much-needed material literacies and extending and expanding modes of attention.

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