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Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology

 

 

Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology & the Ancient World
Brown University
Box 1837 / 60 George Street
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: (401) 863-3188
Fax: (401) 863-9423
[email protected]



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Week 1. January 29. Introduction: material culture studies and the multidisciplinary approach to things, artifacts, objects.


A case study: The Automatic Turk.


Week 2. February 5. Materiality: ethnographies of material culture. Archaeological and anthropological approaches to studying objects, things, artifacts. An overview.

Discussion + Response Papers


Social archaeology and material culture studies

Things: materiality, agency, animacy, biography

Optional reading:


Week 3. February 12. Problem of the fetish: towards a theory of powerful things.

Discussion + Response Papers


Introduction to colonialism from a postcolonial perspective:

The question of the fetish: colonial West Africa in 16th and 17th c.

Representations of the Portuguese on Benin ivories

Presentation articles:


February 19. No class. "Looooong weekend"



Week 4. February 26. Prehistoric figurines and barbie dolls. Performing objects: a new reading of Neolithic Çatalhöyük anthropomorphic and zoomorphic artifacts.
Discussion + Response papers


Uploaded Image

Prehistoric terracotta figurines: deities, individuals or dolls?

Figurine worlds at Çatalhöyük:

Presentation article:

Optional and further reading:


Week 5. March 5. Art and agency: Alfred Gell and the anthropological theory of artifacts. Power and performance in Early Mesopotamian material culture. The fear-inducing shield paradigm.
Discussion + Response Papers.


Alfred Gell's anthropological theory of art and agency:

Materiality, agency and objecthood in Early Mesopotamia

Optional and further reading:


Week 6. March 12. Social life and cultural biography of things. The question of the dedicated and the deposited object. The Neo-Assyrian apotropaic figures

Discussion + Response Papers


Cultural biography of things: theoretical perspectives

Biographies and magic in Mesopotamia and Egypt

Presentation article:

Optional and further reading:


Week 7. March 19. Technology: new transdisciplinary perspectives. Material style and facture. A critique of style. Material meanings and meaningful materials.

Discussion


Uploaded Image

New approaches to technology: art historical, anthropological, archaeological

Meaningful materials, meaningful techniques: skilled craftsmanship in Mesopotamia

Optional and further reading:


March 26. No class. Spring recess.



Week 8. April 2. Divine things: cult practice, cult objects, performing statues.

Discussion


Optional and further reading:


Week 9. April 9. Visit to RISD Museum: Figurines from ancient Aegean and the Eastern mediterranean world. Rethinking material worlds: artifacts in museum contexts.


Figurines from the Aegean

Rethinking material worlds: artifacts in museum contexts


Week 10. April 16. Ethnographies of space, place, landscape I: Houses are human: Ethnographies of domestic space and vernacular architecture in Africa and the Near East.

Discussion


Optional and further reading:


Week 11. April 23. Ethnographies of space, place, landscape II: Rock reliefs in Anatolia and Assyria- the case of the Source of the Tigris monuments
Discussion


Optional and further reading:


Week 12. April 30. Student Presentations of Individual Projects. Final Discussion. Final paper drafts due.


May 14. Monday, 5 pm: Final papers due.


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