Biographies of Scientific Objects

Biographies of Scientific Objects

Author: Lorraine Daston

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2000-06-15

Total Pages: 324

ISBN-13: 9780226136721

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Looks at how whole domains of phenomena come into being and sometimes pass away as objects of scientific study. With examples from the natural and social sciences, ranging from the 16th to the 20th centuries, this book explores the ways in which scientific objects are both real and historical.


Object Biographies

Object Biographies

Author: Menil Collection (Houston, Tex.)

Publisher: Menil Foundation

Published: 2021

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780300250879

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A revealing look at ancient art in the Menil Collection that addresses the problem of objects lacking archaeological context This innovative anthology discusses a diversity of ancient Mediterranean objects--a Mesopotamian votive figure, a Egyptian relief from the New Kingdom, and a Greek Geometric fawn among them--in the Menil Collection and three other US museums. It offers new models for understanding works from antiquity that lack archaeological context. Essays by 13 authors written with the layperson in mind employ a creative mixture of iconography, technical studies, and modern provenance research to gain insight into the meaning of the objects themselves and what they can teach us more broadly aboutarchaeology, art history, and collecting practices. They take on complex issues of cultural heritage, legality, and taste to bring to life works that are often consigned to either the imperial past or a conceptual limbo. Essays on related groups or single objects introduce fresh frameworks to engage with the multilayered history these objects represent. The eight object biographies on ancient artifacts in the Menil are the first in-depth studies published on the collection. Essays by seven university professors probe works in their areas of expertise, while those by seven curators lay bare one object biography; frame provenance studies at the San Antonio Museum of Art, Getty Museum, and Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and survey war's effect on ancient works. The editors' introduction and an epilogue responding to the other 13 texts review theoretical and practical issues in the study of artifacts lacking archaeological findspots (provenience). Recommended for programs and libraries in museum studies, archaeology, and art history; art and heritage law programs; and readers fascinated by cold-case detective work on the material culture of the ancient Mediterranean. Distributed for the Menil Collection


Museums and Biographies

Museums and Biographies

Author: Kate Hill

Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd

Published: 2014

Total Pages: 351

ISBN-13: 184383961X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Exploring the relationship between museums and biographies, this collection of essays examines examples from the early 19th century to the present day.


Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt

Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt

Author: Lynn Meskell

Publisher: Berg Publishers

Published: 2004-07-02

Total Pages: 280

ISBN-13:

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

From the Valley of the Kings to Las Vegas, Egypt looms large in the Western imagination. So why are we intrigued by pyramids and practices of mummification? Is it because the ancient Egyptians fetishized material objects? And what do Egyptian remains tell us about biography, embodiment, memory, materiality, the self, and, indeed, ourselves? This book considers how excavated objects reveal ancient Egyptians' experiences of their material world. It also explores existential questions that not only preoccupied ancient Egyptians, but continue to fascinate people today. What is the essence of persons and things? How might we understand the situated experiences of material life? How might objects successfully mediate between worlds? Meskell ultimately moves forward through time and examines the consumption of Egyptian material objects in the contemporary world, including Las Vegas. Meskell provides an elegant analysis of the aesthetics of ancient Egyptian material culture and insights into its mysteries, including our own ongoing fascination.


Biographical Objects

Biographical Objects

Author: Janet Hoskins

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-09-13

Total Pages: 224

ISBN-13: 1136678573

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

First Published in 1998. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.


Material Selves

Material Selves

Author: Alex Burchmore

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2024-10-31

Total Pages: 233

ISBN-13: 1350416460

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

What do Persian robes of honour, 20th-century still-life painting, fur garments, and 18th-century porcelain all have in common? Prized, possessed and modelled, they highlight the deep connections we share with cultural objects. Establishing new connections between people and things via artistic media and material culture, this highly interdisciplinary volume brings together both established and emerging scholars in the fields of art history, material culture, museum and heritage studies and literary studies to investigate the intersection of the personal with the material. Raising vital questions of cultural identity, belonging and selfhood, Material Selves is the first book of its kind to consider the relationship between people and things across transcultural and transhistorical contexts. It employs innovative methodologies across ten chapters and critically expands on current models for understanding the dynamic relationship between people and things by tracing the central role objects have played in the construction, creation and performance of identity throughout history. Structured around four key sections exploring biography and narrative; adornment and ornament; reclamation and intervention; and subjects and objects, the volume presents a global selection of case studies that explore, amongst other things, Margaret Olley's enduring fame, the significance of the Khil'a in Safavid Persia and early modern Europe, and 17th-century French painter Charles LeBrun's royal portraiture. Fusing these with contemporary theories of identity, the contributors provide analyses informed by posthumanism, the environmental humanities, race and gender. At the same time, they confront vital questions of identity, agency, and materiality, and highlight the way in which we use objects to tell stories, construct myths and make sense of our place in the world. In doing so, the book illuminates a wide range of cultural and chronological settings whilst giving close attention to the mobility of people and things between, across, and through time and place.


Travelling Objects: Changing Values

Travelling Objects: Changing Values

Author: Benjamin Jennings

Publisher: Archaeopress Publishing Ltd

Published: 2014-07-18

Total Pages: 229

ISBN-13: 190573994X

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Since their initial discovery in the nineteenth century, the enigmatic prehistoric lake-dwellings of the Circum-Alpine region have captured the imagination of the public and archaeologists alike.


Lineages and Advancements in Material Culture Studies

Lineages and Advancements in Material Culture Studies

Author: Timothy Carroll

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-10

Total Pages: 422

ISBN-13: 1000182630

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

This volume comprises a curated conversation between members of the Material Culture Section of University College London Anthropology. In laying out the state of play in the field, it challenges how the anthropology of material culture is being done and argues for new directions of enquiry and new methods of investigation. The contributors consider the ramifications of specific research methods and explore new methodological frameworks to address areas of human experience that require a new analytical approach. The case studies draw from a range of contexts, including digital objects, infrastructure, data, extraterrestriality, ethnographic curation, and medical materiality. They include timely reappraisals of now-classical analytical models that have shaped the way we understand the object, the discipline, knowledge formation, and the artefact.


Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy/Zeitschrift für Kulturmanagement und Kulturpolitik

Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy/Zeitschrift für Kulturmanagement und Kulturpolitik

Author: Constance DeVereaux

Publisher: transcript Verlag

Published: 2021-07-31

Total Pages: 211

ISBN-13: 3839453895

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Journal of Cultural Management and Cultural Policy offers international perspectives on a wide range of issues in cultural management and cultural policy research and practice. This issue examines the effects digitization and digitalization have had on discourses, research designs, and processes of artistic production, distribution, and reception. Dealing with digital phenomena reconfigures social patterns of action, thinking, and organization in the arts and cultural sectors. These sectors are changing profoundly and rapidly, and with them their networks, audiences, the conditions of work and consumption. These issues are particularly acute during the ongoing COVID 19-pandemic with serious effects on the arts and cultural fields, showing the possibilities, but also the limits, of digitalization and digitization in the cultural sector. The authors discuss the challenges and opportunities digitalization and digitization imply for cultural management and cultural policy.