Studies in gender & material culture
2 total works
Material culture is not a subject which has to date attracted much attention from historians, whose usual source material is the written word. This volume shows just how illuminating the study of artifacts, and documentation concerning the acquisition and meaning of artifacts can be for the study of history in any period. Ranging from the use of clothing as votive offerings in ancient Greece to the function of reproductive technology in the 20th century, the scope of this volume is excitingly dismissive of traditional chronologies and disciplinary boundaries. Gender historians will not be surprised to find the historical meaning of many artifacts to be permeated by gender difference.
Focusing primarily on visual forms of representation, but also including material on literary representation, this volume brings together studies as apparently disparate as the iconography of power in Mediterranean prehistory and clothing and cultural meaning in the First and Second World Wars. What draws these chapters together is the common focus on how the scholar of the twenty-first century can pursue the interpretation of past representational cultural production from a gendered perspective. The fruit of research by academics from the fields of archaeology, classics and ancient history, art history and social history, and from both sides of the Atlantic, this volume is a fascinating introduction to a developing field.