Responses for Friday, November 7

This week, respond to your reading: David Lubin, Shooting Kennedy: JFK and the Culture of Images (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003).

Consider especially the way that Lubin compares images of JFK to other types of images--paintings, sculptures, art films, popular films, advertisements, and so forth. Are these kinds of comparisons valid and why?

Responses for Friday, October 31

This week, respond to any aspect of Alison J. Clarke, Tupperware: The Promise of Plastic in 1950s America (Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1999). Try to consider the ways in which Clarke incorporates issues of gender, class, and race into her discussion of Tupperware.

Responses for Friday, October 24

You may respond to the reading of your choice this week. Remember, don't lose the forest for the trees!

Responses for October 17

For this week, please respond to either: Bridget Heneghan, “The Pot Calling the Kettle: White Goods and the Construction of Race in Antebellum America,” Whitewashing America: Material Culture and Race in the Antebellum Imagination (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2003), 3-43 ; or Jonathan Prown, “The Furniture of Thomas Day: A Reevaluation,” Winterthur Portfolio 33, 4 (1998): 215-230.

Whichever article you choose, please be sure to comment about how the author uses material culture to explore questions of race. Try to consider the BIG issues that each author asks and answers in the articles.

Responses for Friday, October 10

This week, please respnd to the reading of your choice.
Richard L. Bushman, Chapter 1, “The Gentrification of Rural Delaware,” pp. 3- 29; Chapter 2, “Courtesy Books,” pp. 30-60, and Chapter 3, “Bodies and Minds,” pp. 61-99, in The Refinement of America: Persons, Houses, Cities (New York: Vintage Books, 1993).
Barbara G. Carson, “Customs and Manners: Ranks and Fashion at Mealtime,” in Ambitious Appetites: Dining, Behavior, and Patterns of Consumption in Federal Washington (AIA Press, 1990), 59-73.
Rodris Roth, “Tea-Drinking in Eighteenth-Century America: Its Etiquette and Equipage,” in Material Life in America, 1600-1860, edited by Robert Blair St. George (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1988), 439-462.

If you don't understand something about the readings, please ask questions in your response.

Responses for Friday, September 26

This week, please respond to any aspect of your reading in Adrian Forty, Objects of Desire: Design and Society Since 1750 (New York: Thames and Hudson, 1992).
Consider especially the way the design of an object affects its production and/or use. If you choose to talk about a chapter in the book that not everyone else has read, make sure you explain any examples that you may cite so that everyone can follow along.

Responses for Friday, September 19

This week, please respond to William Rathje and Cullen Murphy, Chapters 1 and 3, Rubbish! The Archaeology of Garbage (New York: Harper Collins, 1992), 1-29 and 53-78. Try to get beyond the novelty of Rathje's project in your response. Try to answer the following questions: Is Rathje really practicing material culture study? Compared to the material culture studies we have already read and considered, how is Rathje's brand of material culture similar or different?