A Philosophy Of Material Culture

A Philosophy Of Material Culture Book in PDF, ePub and Kindle version is available to download in english. Read online anytime anywhere directly from your device. Click on the download button below to get a free pdf file of A Philosophy Of Material Culture book. This book definitely worth reading, it is an incredibly well-written.

A Philosophy of Material Culture

Author : Beth Preston
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2013
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9780415623087

Get Book

A Philosophy of Material Culture by Beth Preston Pdf

This book focuses on material culture as a subject of philosophical inquiry and promotes the philosophical study of material culture by articulating some of the central and difficult issues raised by this topic and providing innovative solutions to them, most notably an account of improvised action and a non-intentionalist account of function in material culture. Preston argues that material culture essentially involves activities of production and use; she therefore adopts an action-theoretic foundation for a philosophy of material culture. Part 1 illustrates this foundation through a critique, revision, and extension of existing philosophical theories of action. Part 2 investigates a salient feature of material culture itself-its functionality. A basic account of function in material culture is constructed by revising and extending existing theories of biological function to fit the cultural case. Here the adjustments are for the most part necessitated by special features of function in material culture. These two parts of the project are held together by a trio of overarching themes: the relationship between individual and society, the problem of centralized control, and creativity.

A Philosophy of Material Culture

Author : Beth Preston
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 258 pages
File Size : 53,7 Mb
Release : 2013-01-17
Category : Computers
ISBN : 9781135088705

Get Book

A Philosophy of Material Culture by Beth Preston Pdf

This book focuses on material culture as a subject of philosophical inquiry and promotes the philosophical study of material culture by articulating some of the central and difficult issues raised by this topic and providing innovative solutions to them, most notably an account of improvised action and a non-intentionalist account of function in material culture. Preston argues that material culture essentially involves activities of production and use; she therefore adopts an action-theoretic foundation for a philosophy of material culture. Part 1 illustrates this foundation through a critique, revision, and extension of existing philosophical theories of action. Part 2 investigates a salient feature of material culture itself—its functionality. A basic account of function in material culture is constructed by revising and extending existing theories of biological function to fit the cultural case. Here the adjustments are for the most part necessitated by special features of function in material culture. These two parts of the project are held together by a trio of overarching themes: the relationship between individual and society, the problem of centralized control, and creativity.

Design and Spirituality

Author : Stuart Walker
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 319 pages
File Size : 41,9 Mb
Release : 2020-12-30
Category : Architecture
ISBN : 9781000245950

Get Book

Design and Spirituality by Stuart Walker Pdf

Design and Spirituality examines the philosophical context of our current situation and its implications for design. It explores how modernity and our constricted notions of progress have contributed to today’s crisis of values, and argues for a re-establishment and re-affirmation of self-transcending priorities, together with an ethos of moderation and sufficiency. A wide range of topics are covered, including material culture and spiritual teachings; sustainability and the spiritual perspective; traditional and indigenous knowledge; technology and spirituality; notions of meaningful design; and how particular material things can have deeper, symbolic significance. There are also reflections on areas such as the language of design; busyness and its relationship to wisdom; design and social disparity; and traditional sacred practices. While not avoiding issues that are controversial, and sometimes hard-hitting, Design and Spirituality gets to the heart of the key issues affecting us today and presents them in a highly readable and accessible format. The author is a leading thinker in the field and he presents his arguments in a manner that invites the reader to reflect and think about where we are going, why we are going there and what really matters. Podcasts https://www.jesuit.ie/podcasts/the-spiritual-dimension-of-design/ https://newbooksnetwork.com/design-and-spirituality

Understanding Material Culture

Author : Ian Woodward
Publisher : SAGE
Page : 201 pages
File Size : 55,8 Mb
Release : 2007-05-09
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781848607262

Get Book

Understanding Material Culture by Ian Woodward Pdf

"In his interdisciplinary review of material culture, Ian Woodward goes beyond synthesis to offer a theoretically innovative reconstruction of the field. It is filled with gems of conceptual insight and empirical discovery. A wonderful book." - Jeffrey C. Alexander, Yale University "A well-grounded and accessible survey of the burgeoning field of material culture studies for students in sociology and consumption studies. While situating the field within the history of intellectual thought in the broader social sciences, it offers detailed and accessible case studies. These are supplemented by very useful directions for further in-depth reading, making it an excellent undergraduate course companion." - Victor Buchli, University College London Why are i-pods and mobile phones fashion accessories? Why do people spend thousands remodelling their perfectly functional kitchen? Why do people crave shoes or handbags? Is our desire for objects unhealthy, or irrational? Objects have an inescapable hold over us, not just in consumer culture but increasingly in the disciplines that study social relations too. This book offers a systematic overview of the diverse ways of studying the material as culture. Surveying the field of material culture studies through an examination and synthesis of classical and contemporary scholarship on objects, commodities, consumption, and symbolization, this book: introduces the key concepts and approaches in the study of objects and their meanings presents the full sweep of core theory - from Marxist and critical approaches to structuralism and semiotics shows how and why people use objects to perform identity, achieve social status, and narrativize life experiences analyzes everyday domains in which objects are important shows why studying material culture is necessary for understanding the social. This book will be essential reading for students and researchers in sociology, anthropology, cultural studies, consumer behaviour studies, design and fashion studies.

Sensitive Objects

Author : Jonas Frykman,Maja Povrzanovic Frykman
Publisher : Nordic Academic Press
Page : 291 pages
File Size : 54,7 Mb
Release : 2016-04-12
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9789188168627

Get Book

Sensitive Objects by Jonas Frykman,Maja Povrzanovic Frykman Pdf

Some objects seem especially personal and important to us - be it a quickly packed suitcase, an inherited vase, or a photograph. In Sensitive Objects the authors discuss when, how, and why particular objects appear as 'sensitive'. They do so by analyzing the objects' affective charging in the context of historically embedded practices. Sensitive Objects is a contribution to the upcoming field of 'affect research' that has so far been dominated by psychology and cultural studies, and the authors examine the potential for epistemic gain by connecting the studies of affect with the studies of material culture. The contributors, predominantly ethnologists and anthropologists, use fieldwork to examine how people project affects onto material objects and explore how objects embody or trigger affects and produce affective atmospheres.

Material Culture and Text

Author : Christopher Tilley
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 192 pages
File Size : 51,5 Mb
Release : 2014-10-30
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781317599661

Get Book

Material Culture and Text by Christopher Tilley Pdf

Originally published in 1991, this is the first book-length exploration of post-structuralist discourse theory in archaeology. It tackles the most basic problem of historical and archaeological analysis - the relationship between text and artefact – in an analysis of prehistoric art fusing theory and the practice of interpretation to create a fresh framework for understanding the relationship between past and present. Focusing on a collection of rock carvings from northern Sweden, the author shows how alternative conceptualizations of the material from structuralist, hermeneutic and structural-Marxist frameworks substantially alter our understanding of their meaning and significance. Engaging readers in an interpretive process, this book is for specialists in archaeology, anthropology, art history and cultural studies.

The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies

Author : Dan Hicks,Mary C. Beaudry
Publisher : OUP Oxford
Page : 794 pages
File Size : 48,9 Mb
Release : 2010-09-02
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780199218714

Get Book

The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies by Dan Hicks,Mary C. Beaudry Pdf

Written by an international team of experts, the Handbook makes accessible a full range of theoretical and applied approaches to the study of material culture, and the place of materiality in social theory, presenting current thinking about material culture from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, geography, and science and technology studies.

Material Culture

Author : Henry Glassie
Publisher : Unknown
Page : 432 pages
File Size : 47,8 Mb
Release : 1999
Category : Material culture
ISBN : UOM:39076001980262

Get Book

Material Culture by Henry Glassie Pdf

Material culture records human intrusion in the environment. It is the way we imagine a distinction between nature and culture, and then rebuild nature to our own desire, by shaping, reshaping, and arranging things during our lifetimes. We live in material culture, depend upon it, take it for granted, and realize through it our grandest aspirations.

Thinking Through Material Culture

Author : Carl Knappett
Publisher : University of Pennsylvania Press
Page : 213 pages
File Size : 41,7 Mb
Release : 2010-11-24
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9780812202496

Get Book

Thinking Through Material Culture by Carl Knappett Pdf

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.

What Objects Mean

Author : Arthur Asa Berger
Publisher : Routledge
Page : 273 pages
File Size : 53,9 Mb
Release : 2016-06-16
Category : POLITICAL SCIENCE
ISBN : 9781315415840

Get Book

What Objects Mean by Arthur Asa Berger Pdf

Arthur Asa Berger, author of an array of texts in communication, popular culture, and social theory, is back with the second edition of his popular, user-friendly guide for students who want to understand the social meanings of objects. In this broadly interdisciplinary text, Berger takes the reader through half a dozen theoretical models that are commonly used to analyze objects. He then describes and analyzes eleven objects, many of them new to this edition—including smartphones, Facebook, hair dye, and the American flag—showing how they demonstrate concepts like globalization, identity, and nationalism. The book includes a series of exercises that allow students to analyse objects in their own environment. Brief and inexpensive, this introductory guide will be used in courses ranging from anthropology to art history, pop culture to psychology.

The Material Cultures of Enlightenment Arts and Sciences

Author : Adriana Craciun
Publisher : Springer
Page : 322 pages
File Size : 49,5 Mb
Release : 2016-08-24
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 9781137443793

Get Book

The Material Cultures of Enlightenment Arts and Sciences by Adriana Craciun Pdf

In this book the eighteenth century Enlightenment receives an important reassessment, using an astonishing range of materials and objects drawn from Europe and beyond, including artefacts from India and China, West Africa and Polynesia. A series of authoritative essays written by experts in the field explores the full range of material culture in the long eighteenth century, raising crucial questions about notions of property and invention, homely and commercial lives. The book also includes a series of well-illustrated exhibits, a startling and provocative assemblage of objects from the Enlightenment world, each accompanied by expert commentaries. The collection of essays and exhibits is the result of collaborative debate by scholars from Europe and north America, who have together worked on the cross-disciplinary importance of material history in making sense of how past society was fundamentally transformed through the world of goods.

Handbook of Material Culture

Author : Chris Tilley,Webb Keane,Susanne Kuechler,Mike Rowlands,Patricia Spyer
Publisher : SAGE
Page : 576 pages
File Size : 45,6 Mb
Release : 2006-01-05
Category : Social Science
ISBN : 9781446206430

Get Book

Handbook of Material Culture by Chris Tilley,Webb Keane,Susanne Kuechler,Mike Rowlands,Patricia Spyer Pdf

The study of material culture is concerned with the relationship between persons and things in the past and in the present, in urban and industrialized and in small-scale societies across the globe. The Handbook of Material Culture provides a critical survey of the theories, concepts, intellectual debates, substantive domains and traditions of study characterizing the analysis of things. It is cutting-edge: rather than simply reviewing the field as it currently exists. It also attempts to chart the future: the manner in which material culture studies may be extended and developed. The Handbook of Material Culture is divided into five sections. • Section I maps material culture studies as a theoretical and conceptual field. • Section II examines the relationship between material forms, the human body and the senses. • Section III focuses on subject-object relations. • Section IV considers things in terms of processes and transformations in terms of production, exchange and consumption, performance and the significance of things over the long-term. • Section V considers the contemporary politics and poetics of displaying, representing and conserving material and the manner in which this impacts on notions of heritage, tradition and identity. The Handbook charts an interdisciplinary field of studies that makes an unique and fundamental contribution to an understanding of what it means to be human. It will be of interest to all who work in the social and historical sciences, from anthropologists and archaeologists to human geographers to scholars working in heritage, design and cultural studies.

Living with Class

Author : R. Scapp,B. Seitz
Publisher : Springer
Page : 347 pages
File Size : 42,6 Mb
Release : 2013-12-18
Category : Philosophy
ISBN : 9781137326799

Get Book

Living with Class by R. Scapp,B. Seitz Pdf

A philosophical-cultural exploration, this book expands the discussion of "class" from a novel perspective. Following the current debates about wealth and class, the contributors address the social and cultural phenomena of class from a uniquely innovative philosophical approach and reconsider philosophical "givens" within the context of culture.

How Things Shape the Mind

Author : Lambros Malafouris
Publisher : MIT Press
Page : 321 pages
File Size : 42,8 Mb
Release : 2016-02-12
Category : Psychology
ISBN : 9780262528924

Get Book

How Things Shape the Mind by Lambros Malafouris Pdf

An account of the different ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body, from prehistory to the present. An increasingly influential school of thought in cognitive science views the mind as embodied, extended, and distributed rather than brain-bound or “all in the head.” This shift in perspective raises important questions about the relationship between cognition and material culture, posing major challenges for philosophy, cognitive science, archaeology, and anthropology. In How Things Shape the Mind, Lambros Malafouris proposes a cross-disciplinary analytical framework for investigating the ways in which things have become cognitive extensions of the human body. Using a variety of examples and case studies, he considers how those ways might have changed from earliest prehistory to the present. Malafouris's Material Engagement Theory definitively adds materiality—the world of things, artifacts, and material signs—into the cognitive equation. His account not only questions conventional intuitions about the boundaries and location of the human mind but also suggests that we rethink classical archaeological assumptions about human cognitive evolution.

Material Culture and Jewish Thought in America

Author : Ken Koltun-Fromm
Publisher : Indiana University Press
Page : 358 pages
File Size : 48,6 Mb
Release : 2010-04-21
Category : Religion
ISBN : 9780253004161

Get Book

Material Culture and Jewish Thought in America by Ken Koltun-Fromm Pdf

How Jews think about and work with objects is the subject of this fascinating study of the interplay between material culture and Jewish thought. Ken Koltun-Fromm draws from philosophy, cultural studies, literature, psychology, film, and photography to portray the vibrancy and richness of Jewish practice in America. His analyses of Mordecai Kaplan's obsession with journal writing, Joseph Soloveitchik's urban religion, Abraham Joshua Heschel's fascination with objects in The Sabbath, and material identity in the works of Anzia Yezierska, Cynthia Ozick, Bernard Malamud, and Philip Roth, as well as Jewish images on the covers of Lilith magazine and in the Jazz Singer films, offer a groundbreaking approach to an understanding of modern Jewish thought and its relation to American culture.