Objects in Context: Theorizing Material Culture

by Stephanie Anderson, Cierra Webster

Objects in Theorizing Material Culture brings together a group of diverse essays originating from a graduate student conference held at Western University in 2013 entitled (Re)Activating Social Theory and Material Culture. With over 100 delegates from across Canada and the United States, the conference’s vision was to investigate the ways that material culture provides a lens to examine the structures of our socio-cultural-economic worlds. As such, this publication provides interdisciplinary approaches to a wide range of fundamental and theoretical questions about social constructions, social politics, and social ethics. The contributing scholars offer critical approaches which ‘activate’ objects that are under-theorized and/or ‘reactivate’ objects with shifting or multiple ideologies. Ultimately, the papers within this volume address the broad-ranging question, what can objects tell us about the worlds in which we live?

172 pages, Paperback

Published October 4, 2013