Thinking through material culture : an interdisciplinary perspective / Carl Knappett.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Knappett, Carl.

Series:

Archaeology, culture, and society.

Archaeology, culture, and society

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Material culture.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (213 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Material culture surrounds us and yet is habitually overlooked. So integral is it to our everyday lives that we take it for granted. This attitude has also afflicted the academic analysis of material culture, although this is now beginning to change, with material culture recently emerging as a topic in its own right within the social sciences. Carl Knappett seeks to contribute to this emergent field by adopting a wide-ranging interdisciplinary approach that is rooted in archaeology and integrates anthropology, sociology, art history, semiotics, psychology, and cognitive science. His thesis is that humans both act and think through material culture; ways of knowing and ways of doing are ingrained within even the most mundane of objects. This requires that we adopt a relational perspective on material artifacts and human agents, as a means of characterizing their complex interdependencies. In order to illustrate the networks of meaning that result, Knappett discusses examples ranging from prehistoric Aegean ceramics to Zande hunting nets and contemporary art.Thinking Through Material Culture argues that, although material culture forms the bedrock of archaeology, the discipline has barely begun to address how fundamental artifacts are to human cognition and perception. This idea of codependency among mind, action, and matter opens the way for a novel and dynamic approach to all of material culture, both past and present.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

1. Introduction: Thinking Through Material Culture

2. Animacy, Agency, and Personhood

3. Cognition, Perception, and Action

4. The Dynamics of Networks

5. Networks of Meaning: A Sociosemiotics of Material Culture

6. Thinking Through: Meaning in Modern Material Culture

7. Archaeological Case Study: Drinking Vessels in Minoan Crete

8. Conclusions

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9786613211798

9781283211796

1283211793

9780812202496

081220249X

OCLC:

759158245