OVERVIEW

The general theme, historical and anthropological, of the teaching of History of material culture is that of the construction of the material world: the material realities of power and prestige, the material evidence of ritual and ceremonial, the material bases of cognitive systems and symbolic behavior.

AIMS AND CONTENT

LEARNING OUTCOMES

The course has two major learning outcomes: being able to reconstruct the concept of material culture and its history; being able to carry out a critical analysis of the evolution of the concept of material culture, from its material aspects to its cultural aspects, from production to consumption.

AIMS AND LEARNING OUTCOMES

Students in this class will learn about the processes that produce the things, analyzing the economic and social history of objects (from materials to maker and consumption to trash).  Students will also learn a method to critically analyze historiographic literature and sources, to critically read a text or a document, and to communicate with a scientific language the results of a reading or research.  On completion of the Material Culture Analysis unit students will be introduced to the topic of material culture analysis, and will gain knowledge of culture analysis theories, concepts, methods and issues. The students must also be able to present and critically discuss the proposed and / or recommended texts for the individual study activity.

TEACHING METHODS

The course is based on a seminar method. Readings and discussion of texts are part of the teaching.

SYLLABUS/CONTENT

An introductory module will be focused on the concept of material culture, on its history, and on the ways in which historians used this concept. The teaching will then focus on biography of objects, the social life of things, and the global life of things. The notion of biography of objects is the core of material culture studies since Kopytoff (1988). The global life of things considers the ways in which things partecipated in the shaping of global connections in the period 1400-1800.

RECOMMENDED READING/BIBLIOGRAPHY

 I. Kopytoff, The cultural biography of things: commodization as process, in A. Appadurai, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective, London 1988, pp. 64-91.

Ch. Gosden, Y. Marshall, The cultural biography of objects, in "World Archaeology", 31 (1999), pp. 169-178.

I. Hodder, The Entanglements of Humans and Things: A Long-Term View, in "New Literary History", Volume 45, Number 1, Winter 2014, pp. 19-36.

A. Gerritsen, G. Riello, The Global Life of Things. The Material Culture of Connections in the Early Modern World, New York, Routlege, 2016.

The reading list, together with the lecturer's instructions are available on the Italian version of the web page and in Aulaweb.

TEACHERS AND EXAM BOARD

Exam Board

LUCA LO BASSO (President)

PAOLO CALCAGNO

OSVALDO RAGGIO

ANNA MARIA STAGNO

LESSONS

LESSONS START

March 18, 2019

Class schedule

The timetable for this course is available here: Portale EasyAcademy

EXAMS

EXAM DESCRIPTION

 The exam is oral. The written tests in progress will be the subject of discussion and will contribute to the final evaluation. Written tests are not mandatory and are valid for the academic year of the course.

ASSESSMENT METHODS

 By the end of this session, students will be able to evaluate  the arguments they have read and put forward their own view. The oral exam and the discussion of the written tests in progress will verify the achievement of the learning outcomes. The main evaluation parameters are the quality of the exposition and vocabulary used, both in oral communication and in written tests, and the capacity for critical and comparative reasoning.

Exam schedule