Material Identities (New Interventions in Art History)

Material Identities examines the way that individuals use material objects as tools for conveying certain aspects of their personalities to others. Exploring the complexity of identity through the intersecting notions of gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, and class, this book looks at the deliberate expression and manipulation of identity through the use of material goods, and how individuals single out aspects of themselves in order to project or conceal particular characteristics.

Engaging with objects from the past and present, high and low culture, and from around the globe, this volume explores the range of contrasting media from painting and print to clothing and furniture, and takes the reader on a whirlwind tour of material culture’s expression, and identity’s careful orchestration. Contributors include experts from various fields including architectural theory and museum studies.

Art historians, architectural historians, and archaeologists explore how the activity of objects can be enrolled in the projection of public identities by looking at how the fabrication of identities are linked to the fabrication of the material world. Among their case studies are the Greek symposium, architectural style and identity in Egypt, and body ornamentation in later prehistoric Europe. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Material Identities examines the way that individuals use material objects as tools for projecting aspects of their identities.

Material Identities examines the way that individuals use material objects as tools for projecting aspects of their identities.

• Considers the way identity is fashioned, launched, used, and admired in the material world.

• Contributors intervene from the disciplines of art history, anthropology, design and material culture.

• Considers contrasting media - painting, print, sculpture, dress, coinage, architecture, furniture, luxury items, and interior design.

• Explores the complexity of identity through the intersection notions of gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, and class.

• Reaffirms the central role of public identities and their impact on social life.

Joanna Sofaer is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Southampton. She is the author of The Body as Material Culture: A Theoretical Osteoarchaeology (2006), editor of Children and Material Culture (2000) and co-editor, with Dana Arnold, of Biographies and Space (2007).

Series Editor’s Preface.

List of Illustrations.

Notes on Contributors.

Acknowledgments.

Introduction: Materiality and Identity (Joanna Sofaer).

PART I: PROJECTING IDENTITIES.

1. Mai/Omai in London and the South Pacific: Perfomativity, Cultural Entanglement, and Indigenous Appropriation (Jocelyn Hackforth-Jones).

2. Projecting Identities in the Greek Symposion (Robin Osborne).

PART II: MATERIAL AND SOCIAL TRANSFORMATIONS.

3. Bernini Struts (Michael Cole).

4. Architectural Style and Identity in Egypt (Doris Behrens-Abouseif).

5. Identifying the Body: Representing Self. Art, Ornamentation and the Body In Later Prehistoric Europe (Fay Stevens).

PART III: POLITICS AND IDENTITY.

6. Aristocratic Identity: Regency Furniture and the Egyptian Revival Style (Abigail Harrison-Moore).

7. Architecture, Power, and Politics: The Forum-Basilica in Roman Britain (Louise Revell).

Bibliography.

Index.