Course Description and Outcomes

This seminar is an introduction to the art history methodology of material culture. Simply put, the study of material culture is the study of “things”—human-made or human-modified products. These “things” can include clothing, your grandmother’s heirloom jewelry, a formally landscaped garden, a painting, or the contents of a trash can. Scholars of material culture investigate these cultural products as a way to uncover the beliefs, values, attitudes, needs, hopes and fears of a particular society at a particular moment. In this class we will look at art (early American portraiture; southern plantation architecture; hand-built wooden furniture), luxury goods (Marie Antoinette’s clothing; silver teapots), consumer goods (Tupperware; table forks), and popular imagery (photographs of President Kennedy; the interior decor of Graceland) through the material culture lens.

However, the study of objects alone is not enough. Material culture scholars must study contexts as well as objects, for it is only by considering the historical, social, spatial, and cultural contexts that we can come to a fuller understanding of the meaning expressed by the human-made/modified product itself.

In addition, the field of material culture studies is filled with challenges and debates. Scholars sometimes argue that objects “speak” to us about the past. What does this mean? How can we know for sure what the artifact(s) is “saying” to us? What are the limitations of using objects as evidence? Is it possible to overstate an object’s value as evidence? Is it possible to overstrain an interpretation? Such questions are endemic to the field and are important to our investigations this semester.

This course introduces students to the multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary field of material culture studies through readings, discussion, and research in an array of fields including art history, anthropology, folklore, and history. It is important to recognize that our readings will NOT deal primarily with contemporary art. Rather, this seminar is designed to help you develop critical skills of object analysis and will encourage you to consider the relationships between human –made/modified products and cultural meaning.

Sunday, October 26, 2008

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.
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008

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!
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Saturday, October 11, 2008

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.
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