ARTH 230
Materiality and Meaning Fall 2013
Division I Writing Skills
Cross-listed ANTH 330
This is not the current course catalog

Class Details

In this course we will study the things people make and use, from works of art to clothing, buildings, and tools. We will use anthropological theory to explore the social and communicative roles that objects play in human society and to explain how people use objects to communicate, rebel, exert power, or make sense of the world around them. We will begin by reconsidering the category “art” and by exploring the idea that visual practices are culturally constructed. Through reading ethnographic case studies, we will investigate how meaning and value are produced in different cultural contexts. In particular, we will focus on semiotic theories of value and on theories of exchange, building on Marcel Mauss’s seminal work The Gift. In the second half of the course, we will attend to the role of material culture in capitalist societies by exploring the processes whereby things become commodities; by investigating the relationship between style, aesthetics, and class; and by tracing the interrelationships between design, advertising, and consumer society. Readings will include the work of Pierre Bourdieu, Dick Hebdige, Bronislaw Malinowski, Karl Marx, Annette Weiner, and others.
The Class: Format: seminar
Limit: 19
Expected: 19
Class#: 1942
Grading: OPG
Requirements/Evaluation: participation, two short papers, and a final project
Extra Info: may not be taken on a pass/fail basis
Prerequisites: none; open to all students
Enrollment Preferences: Anthropology and Sociology majors
Distributions: Division I Writing Skills
Notes: meets Division 1 requirement if registration is under ARTH; meets Division 2 requirement if registration is under ANTH
This course is cross-listed and the prefixes carry the following divisional credit:
ANTH 330 Division II ARTH 230 Division I

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