Assignment 2. Cultural Biography of Artifacts
This is a 8-10 page research paper (double spaced/12 font/minimum 1-inch margins) on the cultural biography/social life of an Ancient Near Eastern artifact of your choice, to be accompanied with an image of the object posted on the wiki. Material culture studies today offers new approaches in understanding archaeological objects not simply from the point of their "original" making and the technologies involved in their making, but also through what happens to them in their lifespan. What alternative uses, meanings and identities do objects gather throughout their lives?
You have many options about choosing an object for your interest: you could visit a museum such as the RISD Museum down the street or take the train to Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, or much more conveniently take a look at the Near Eastern artifacts on display at Joukowsky Institute, fall in love with some "thing" on display, and explore its thingly past. You could also do research online or in the library browsing through catalogs of Near East related exhibitions (such as the Treasures of Ur catalogue you've seen) about an archaeological object. Just be creative in your choice, and choose a particularly powerful object. Below I will post some articles and books that may provoke some ideas. Please consider this as a mini research project: your paper should have proper bibliography, referencing, footnotes if necessary. Please consult this page in case you need guidance in writing.
- Proposals due: November 16, 2009 Monday via E-mail ([email protected]) (1 paragraph description of what artifact you are writing about and from what angle you are approaching it, plus preliminary bibliography- 2-3 sources/articles).
- Drafts no later than Nov 30th if you'd like feedback on them (optional).
- Final Paper due: December 4, 2009 Friday hard copy in Omur's mailbox and on the wiki.
Readings
- Hoskins; Janet. “
Agency, biography and objects” in Handbook of material culture. C. Tilley et. al. (eds.). London: Sage Pub., 74-84.
- Gosden, Chris and Ywonne Marshall; 1999. “Cultural biography of objects,” World Archaeology 31: 169-178.
- Harmansah, Omur; 2007. "The Automatic Turk: materiality, agency, performance, biography" Wiki article.
