Responses for Wednesday, February 27

This week you are reading about material culture and gentility, class, and refinement. Respond to any of the readings that you wish. Remember, don't get bogged down in the details.

Responses for Wednesday, February 20

This week's readings use the methodological framework of consumption as a way to understand material goods. The writings of T. H. Breen reconsider long-held assumptions about what painting, particularly portrait painting, meant in eighteenth-century colonial America. William Rathje and Cullen Murphy challenge us to look at the leavings, literally the garbage, of a culture or society as a valid form of material culture inquiry.

Please respond to :

T. H. Breen, “The Meaning of ‘Likeness’: Portrait-Painting in an Eighteenth-Century Consumer Society,” in The Portrait in Eighteenth-Century America, edited by Ellen G. Miles (Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1993), 37-60.

and

William Rathje and Cullen Murphy, Chapters 1 and 3, Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 1-29 and 53-78.

Responses for Wednesday, February 13

This week you are reading Jules David Prown and Kenneth Haltman, editors, American Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2000). All the essays in this book are based on Jules Prown's method for looking at objects. You should respond to:

Sara Laurel Holstein, "Sewing and Sowing: Cultural Continuity in an Amish Quilt," pp. 93-108.

Daisann McLane, "Unwrapping the bwat sekre: The Secrets of a Haitian Money Box," pp. 109-128.

AND one other essay of your choice.

You should also pay careful attention to Jules Prown's article as an example of the idea of object as metaphor.

In your responses you should consider the evidence that the writer presents for his/her interpretation of the object. You should question whether the interpretation is valid. You should determine whether you think the metaphors that each author finds in each object are acceptable.


PLEASE, remember that these posts are a serious portion of this class and one means by which I will determine your ultimate grade. Stay on point and present for the class usable insights or thoughts.

Responses for Wednesday, February 6

This week the readings propose methodologies and explore methodological problems in relationship to the study of material culture. You should respond to the following two articles:

Jules David Prown, “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method,” in Material Life in America, 1600-1860, edited by Robert Blair St. George (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), 17-37.

Dell Upton, “Form and User: Style, Mode, Fashion, and the Artifact,” in Living in a Material World: Canadian and American Approaches to Material Culture (St. John, Newfoundland: Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland, 1991), 156-169.

Prown sets forth a widely used methodology for object study. Upton, on the other hand, confronts some problems in terminology with regard to studies of consumption or use. They are very different articles. Do your best with the Upton, it is the more difficult of the two to understand.

In your responses this week, consider how these articles deal with (or don't deal with) the problems of material culture that we talked about in class last Wednesday. Also consider whether you think the authors' methodological investigations ultimately help the material culturist to shed his/her cultural biases or not.