Degree Programs

This course will survey anthropological theories of art and material culture with a cross-cultural purview and a concentration on indigenous societies in the colonial period (especially, but not exclusively, in North America). We will examine numerous scholarly approaches—functional, symbolic/semiotic/structuralist, aesthetic, economic, historical, and political—to the study of objects, and discuss ways of bringing them into articulation, both with one another and with indigenous perspectives. After a brief historical introduction to early anthropological theories of decorative art and exchange, the class will focus on contemporary approaches framed around such key phrases as cultural biography, objectification, materiality, social agency, art worlds, cultural production, colonial economies, cultural brokerage, regimes of value, tourist art, primitive art, conservation, and repatriation. Students will read a number of monographs, visit local museums, and discuss ethnographic methods of research, writing, and exhibition. The course should prepare students to bring a wide array of theoretical and methodological perspectives to the study of things—from tools to clothes, from souvenirs to fine arts—among diverse global cultural communities. 3 credits.