Material Selves: Object Biographies and Identities in Motion

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Alex Burchmore (the Australian National University, Australia) Michael Yonan (University of California at Davis USA)

Material Selves

Object Biographies and Identities in Motion

Alex Burchmore (the Australian National University, Australia), Michael Yonan (University of California at Davis USA)

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English

Bloomsbury Visual Arts
26 December 2024

Theory of art; Decorative arts; Philosophy: aesthetics; Material culture

Series: Material Culture of Art and Design

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.

Edited by: Alex Burchmore (the Australian National University Australia), Michael Yonan (University of California at Davis USA)
Imprint: Bloomsbury Visual Arts
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 238mm, Width: 160mm, Spine: 20mm
Weight: 656g
ISBN: 9781350416444
ISBN 10: 1350416444
Series: Material Culture of Art and Design
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 26 December 2024
Audience: Professional and scholarly , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Alex Burchmore is Lecturer in Art History and Curatorial Studies at the Australian National University, Australia. He is the author of New Export China: Translations Across Time and Place in Contemporary Chinese Porcelain Art (2023).

Reviews for Material Selves: Object Biographies and Identities in Motion

This rich and vibrant cornucopia of bottom-up, object driven studies brings fresh perspectives to the study of human-thing relations. Employing a diversity of examples and theoretical outlooks, the inter-disciplinary approach will stimulate research in material culture studies, archaeology and anthropology, museum and literary studies, sociology and media studies as much as in art history. * Ian Hodder, Dunlevie Family Professor Emeritus in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, USA * This wide-ranging series of essays, spanning historical dress, jewellery, and contemporary artistic expression, shifts scholarly attention from object-centred exposition to the discursive narrative around objects in the construction of subjecthood. Through a series of relationships always in contextual flux, object and human biographies intertwine to reveal the formation of material selves. * Edward S. Cooke, Jr., Charles F. Montgomery Professor of the History of Art, Yale University, USA *