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Showing 1 - 4 of 4 matches in All Departments
Institutions pervade social life. They express community goals and
values by defining the limits of socially acceptable behavior.
Institutions are often vested with the resources, authority, and
power to enforce the orthodoxy of their time. But institutions are
also arenas in which both orthodoxies and authority can be
contested. Between power and opposition lies the individual
experience of the institutionalized. Whether in a boarding school,
hospital, prison, almshouse, commune, or asylum, their experiences
can reflect the positive impact of an institution or its greatest
failings. This interplay of orthodoxy, authority, opposition, and
individual experience are all expressed in the materiality of
institutions and are eminently subject to archaeological
investigation. A few archaeological and historical publications, in
widely scattered venues, have examined individual institutional
sites. Each work focused on the development of a specific
establishment within its narrowly defined historical context; e.g.,
a fort and its role in a particular war, a schoolhouse viewed in
terms of the educational history of its region, an asylum or prison
seen as an expression of the prevailing attitudes toward the
mentally ill and sociopaths. In contrast, this volume brings
together twelve contributors whose research on a broad range of
social institutions taken in tandem now illuminates the experience
of these institutions. Rather than a culmination of research on
institutions, it is a landmark work that will instigate vigorous
and wide-ranging discussions on institutions in Western life, and
the power of material culture to both enforce and negate cultural
norms.
Material culture studies is an interdisciplinary field that examines the relationships between people and their things: the production, history, preservation, and interpretation of objects. It draws on theory and practice from disciplines in the social sciences and humanities, such as anthropology, archaeology, history, and museum studies. Written by leading international scholars, this Handbook provides a comprehensive view of developments, methodologies and theories. It is divided into five broad themes, embracing both classic and emerging areas of research in the field. Chapters outline transformative moments in material culture scholarship, and present research from around the world, focusing on multiple material and digital media that show the scope and breadth of this exciting field. Written in an easy-to-read style, it is essential reading for students, researchers and professionals with an interest in material culture.
A 2018 CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title New scholarship provides insights into the archaeology and cultural history of African American life from a collection of sites in the Mid-Atlantic This groundbreaking volume explores the archaeology of African American life and cultures in the Upper Mid-Atlantic region, using sites dating from the eighteenth through the twentieth centuries. Sites in Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York are all examined, highlighting the potential for historical archaeology to illuminate the often overlooked contributions and experiences of the region's free and enslaved African American settlers. Archaeologies of African American Life in the Upper Mid-Atlantic brings together cutting-edge scholarship from both emerging and established scholars. Analyzing the research through sophisticated theoretical lenses and employing up-to-date methodologies, the essays reveal the diverse ways in which African Americans reacted to and resisted the challenges posed by life in a borderland between the North and South through the transition from slavery to freedom. In addition to extensive archival research, contributors synthesize the material finds of archaeological work in slave quarter sites, tenant farms, communities, and graveyards. Editors Michael J. Gall and Richard F. Veit have gathered new and nuanced perspectives on the important role free and enslaved African Americans played in the region's cultural history. This collection provides scholars of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast regions, African American studies, material culture studies, religious studies, slavery, the African diaspora, and historical archaeologists with a well-balanced array of rural archaeological sites that represent cultural traditions and developments among African Americans in the region. Collectively, these sites illustrate African Americans' formation of fluid cultural and racial identities, communities, religious traditions, and modes of navigating complex cultural landscapes in the region under harsh and disenfranchising circumstances.
A must for both academic historical archaeologists and contract
archaeologists in the field, this book constitutes a comprehensive
look at the historical archaeology of Delaware from the eighteenth
to the early twentieth century. The approach to archaeological
management developed in Delaware over two decades and embodied in
this book has broad applicability. Many of the nation's historical
archaeological sites are agricultural, and they present cultural
resource managers with considerable challenges. Delaware's
historical archaeology program has begun to explore the "cultures
of agriculture" so central to the course of American history.
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