Rethinking Materiality
Engagement of Mind with Material World
Published on 31. January 2005
Book
Hardback
280 pages
978-1-902937-30-4 (ISBN)
Description
What is the relationship between mind and ideas on the one hand, and the material things of the world on the other? In recent years, researchers have rejected the old debate about the primacy of the mind or material, and have sought to establish more nuanced understandings of the ways humans interact with their material worlds. In this volume alternative approaches are presented, deriving from a wide variety of theoretical perspectives. Contributors debate the significance of key thresholds in the human past, including sedentism, domestication, and the emergence of social inequality and their impact on changing patterns of human cognition, symbolic expression, and technological innovation. In its global coverage and its broad theoretical scope, this landmark volume offers an innovative and comprehensive assessment of current thinking and future directions.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
Illustrations
62 ills., 3 tables
Dimensions
Height: 292 mm
Width: 219 mm
Thickness: 22 mm
Weight
1243 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-902937-30-4 (9781902937304)
Copyright in bibliographic data is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or its licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
edited by Elizabeth DeMarrais, Chris Gosden & Colin Renfrew
Content
Introduction (Elizabeth DeMarrais); Part I: Rethinking Materiality The Materialization of Culture (Elizabeth DeMarrais); Towards a Theory of Material Engagement (Colin Renfrew); Aesthetics, Intelligence and Emotions: Implications for Archaeology (Chris Gosden); Part II Materiality, Mind and History The Affordances of Things: a Post-Gibsonian Perspective on the Relationality of Mind and Matter (Carl Knappett); The Cognitive Basis of Material Engagement: Where Brain, Body and Culture Conflate (Lambros Malafouris); Mind over Matter? Collapsing the Mind-Matter Dichotomy in Material Culture Studies (Nicole Boivin); An Ongoing Outcome, a Surrounding World: Materiality, Agency and History (Manuel A. Arroyo-Kalin); Part III Transition: Materiality of Sedentism and Domestication Materiliaty and Symbolic Force: a Palaeolithic View of Sedentism ( Clive Gamble); Architecture and 'Theatres of Memory' in the Neolithic of Southwest Asia (Trevor Watkins); Domestication, Sedentism, Property and Time: Materiality and the Beginnings of Agriculture in Northern Europe (Richard Bradley); Tangible Materiality and Cosmological Others in the Development of Sedentism (Mary W Helms); Part IV Materiality and Culture: Neolithic and Bronze Age Europe The Extended Artefact and the Monumental Economy: a Methodology for Material Agency (John Robb); Displaying the Stones: the Materiality of 'Megalithic' Monuments (Chris Scarre); Culture Matters: Why Symbolic Objects Change (Timothy Earle); Matter and Memory: Colour, Remembrance and the Neolithic/Bronze Age Transition (Andy Jones); Institutions and Material Culture in Bronze Age Europe: Towards an Intercontextual Archaeology (Kristian Kristiansen); Part V Materiality, Power and the Sacred The Materiality of Sacred Power (Michael Rowlands); The Birth of Mesoamerican Metaphysics: Sedentism, Engagement, and Moral Superiority (John E Clark); Materiality, Feasts, and Figured Worlds in Aztec Mexico (Elizabeth M Brumfiel); Materials and Metaphors of Sovereignty in Central Madagascar (Susan Kus & Victor Raharijaona); Divine Things (Lynn Meskell); Violence into Order: Materiality and Sacred Power in Ancient Iraq (David Wengrow); Part VI Conclusion Thoughts about Rethinking Materiality (George L Cowgill).