Interpreting Objects and Collections

by Pearce; Susan

• ISBN13: 9780415112888
• ISBN10: 0415112885
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1994-11-17
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

This volume brings together the most significant papers on the interpretation of objects and collections. Together these collected writings examine the part that objects play in our lives, how people relate to material culture and why they collect things. Interpreting Objects and Collectionsbegins by setting out the philosophical and historical context of object interpretation. This is followed by a collection of papers discussing objects variously as historical documents, functioning material and as semiotic texts, as well as papers which examine the politics of objects and the methodology of object study. The papers in this second part look at the study of collections in their historical and conceptual context covering many topics including the use of collecting to structure individual identity, its effect on time and space and the construction of gender. There are also papers discussing collection and ideology, collection and social action and the methodology ofcollection study.

Table of Contents

Series Preface	p. x
Acknowledgements	p. xi
Introduction	p. 1
Interpreting Objects	p. 7
Museum Objects	p. 9
The Contextual Analysis of Symbolic Meanings	p. 12
Things Ain't What They Used to Be	p. 13
References	p. 18
Objects as Meaning; or Narrating the Past	p. 19
References	p. 29
Death's Head, Cherub, Urn and Willow	p. 30
Behavioural Interaction with Objects	p. 38
A View of Functionalism	p. 41
Culture as a System with Subsystems	p. 44
Theoretical Archaeology: a Reactionary View	p. 48
A View from the Bridge	p. 53
Ivory for the Sea Woman: The Symbolic Attributes of a Prehistoric Technology	p. 59
References	p. 66
Interpreting Material Culture	p. 67
References	p. 75
Commodities and the Politics of Value	p. 76
Why Fakes?	p. 92
Cannibal Tours, Glass Boxes and the Politics of Interpretation	p. 98
References	p. 106
Craft	p. 107
Towards a Material History Methodology	p. 109
Thinking about Things	p. 125
Mind in Matter: an Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method	p. 133
Not Looking at Kettles	p. 139
Home Interview Questionnaire, with Coding Categories and Definitions	p. 144
Interpreting Collections	p. 155
The Urge to Collect	p. 157
The Collection: between the Visible and the Invisible	p. 160
Notes on the History of Collecting and of Museums	p. 175
Notes and References	p. 187
Another Past, Another Context: Exhibiting Indian Art Abroad	p. 188
Collecting Reconsidered	p. 193
Psychological Aspects of Art Collecting	p. 205
No Two Alike: Play and Aesthetics in Collecting	p. 220
Of Mice and Men: Gender Identity in Collecting	p. 240
Notes	p. 252
Objects of Desire	p. 254
Collecting Ourselves	p. 258
The Filth in the Way	p. 269
Art Museums and the Ritual of Citizenship	p. 279
'The People's Show'	p. 287
Leicester Contemporary Collecting Project's Questionnaire	p. 291
Beyond the Odyssey: Interpretations of Ethnographic Writing in Consumer Behaviour	p. 296
Collectors and Collecting	p. 317
Why They Collect: Collectors Reveal Their Motivations	p. 327
Further Reading	p. 336
Index	p. 338
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