What Is Jewelry History?

How do we study a thing for which there is no formal disciplinary framework? How do we (and should we) syncretize the diverse practices, textual records, visual representations, haptic and cognitive experiences that factor into understanding jewelry as a cultural and material artefact? This course explores the question “what is jewelry history?” from three intersecting viewpoints: hands-on engagement with materials, tools, and basic jewelry-making techniques; consideration of the bodily experience of jewelry from cross-cultural perspectives; and deliberation of viable theoretical approaches to jewelry and its histories. We will also evaluate how our perceptions of looking and/or feeling influence interpretive practices, and by extension impact the kind of historical record we generate. Students will pursue individual projects that will lead to a final collaborative project, an interdisciplinary anthology designed and executed as an in-house digital publication that presents the questions, methods, and findings we have brought to bear on the question of what jewelry history might be. 3 credits.