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An archaeological analysis of the centrality of race and racism in
American culture. Using a broad range of material, historical, and
ethnographic resources from Annapolis, Maryland, during the period
1850 to 1930, the author probes distinctive African-American
consumption patterns and examines how those patterns resisted the
racist assumptions of the dominant culture while also attempting to
demonstrate African-Americans' suitability to full citizenship
privileges.
An archaeological analysis of the centrality of race and racism in
American culture. Using a broad range of material, historical, and
ethnographic resources from Annapolis, Maryland, during the period
1850 to 1930, the author probes distinctive African-American
consumption patterns and examines how those patterns resisted the
racist assumptions of the dominant culture while also attempting to
demonstrate African-Americans' suitability to full citizenship
privileges.
"Mullins has provided us a much-needed overview of the many ways
that historical archaeologists in America have engaged the subject
of consumption. He engages in a thoughtful conversation with a wide
range of scholars--at once demonstrating historical archaeology's
value to those outside of historical archaeology while also making
connections, raising questions, and offering caveats for historical
archaeologists to consider in future studies of the
subject."--Hadley Kruczek-Aaron, coauthor of "Investigations at a
Nineteenth-Century Shaker Outfamily Farm in Ashburnham,
Massachusetts" Americans have long identified themselves with
material goods. In this study, Paul Mullins sifts through this
continent's historical archaeological record to trace the evolution
of North American consumer culture. He explores the social and
economic dynamics that have shaped American capitalism from the
rise of mass production techniques of the eighteenth century to the
unparalleled dominance of twentieth-century mass consumer culture.
The last half-millennium has witnessed profound change in the face
of a worldwide consumer revolution that has transformed labor
relations, marketing, and household materialism. This pathbreaking
research into consumption examines the concrete evidence of the
transformation in individual households, across lines of
difference, and over time. Mullins builds a case for how
interdisciplinary scholarship and archaeology together provide a
foundation for a rigorous, sophisticated, and challenging vision of
consumption. Given that the material culture so often encountered
by historical archaeologists speaks to the consumption patterns of
past peoples, it is an essential and overdue addition to the
historical archaeologist's canon. Paul R. Mullins, professor of
anthropology at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis,
is the author of "Race and Affluence: An Archaeology of African
America and Consumer Culture and Glazed America: A History of the
Doughnut."
In this book, Paul Mullins examines a wide variety of material
objects and landscapes that induce anxiety, provoke unpleasantness,
or simply revolt us. Bringing archaeological insight to subjects
that are not usually associated with the discipline, he looks at
the way the material world shapes how we imagine, express, and
negotiate difficult historical experiences.Revolting Things delves
into well-known examples of "dark heritage" ranging from
Confederate monuments to the sites of racist violence. Mullins
discusses the burials and gravesites of figures who committed
abhorrent acts, locations that in many cases have been either
effaced or dynamically politicized. The book also considers racial
displacement in the wake of post-World War II urban renewal, as
well as the uneasiness many contemporary Americans feel about the
social and material sameness of suburbia. Mullins shows that these
places and things are often repressed in public memory and
discourse because they reflect entrenched structural inequalities
and injustices we are reluctant to acknowledge. Yet he argues that
the richest conversations about the uncomfortable aspects of the
past happen because these histories have tangible remains, exerting
a persistent hold on our imagination. Mullins not only demonstrates
the emotional power of material things but also exposes how these
negative feelings reflect deep-seated anxieties about
twenty-first-century society.
Everybody loves a good doughnut. The magic combination of soft
dough, hot oil, and sugar coating - with or without sprinkles -
inspires a wide range of surprisingly powerful memories and
cravings. Yet we are embarrassed by our desire; the favorite food
of Homer Simpson, caricatured as the dietary cornerstone of cops, a
symbol of our collective descent into obesity, doughnuts are, in
the words of one California consumer, a 'food of shame.'Paul
Mullins turns his attention to the simple doughnut in order to
learn more about North American culture and society. Both a
breakfast staple and a snack to eat any time of day or night,
doughnuts cross lines of gender, class, and race like no other food
item. Favorite doughnut shops that were once neighborhood
institutions remain unchanged - even as their surrounding
neighborhoods have morphed into strip clubs, empty lots, and
abandoned housing.Blending solid scholarship with humorous
insights, Mullins offers a look into doughnut production,
marketing, and consumption. He confronts head-on the question of
why we often paint doughnuts in moral terms, and shows how the
seemingly simple food reveals deep and complex social conflicts
over body image and class structure. In Mullins's skillful hands,
this simple pastry provides surprisingly compelling insights into
our eating habits, our identity, and modern consumer culture. This
is a trip through the doughnut hole to learn what a humble circle
of fried dough tells us about ourselves.
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