The Oxford Handbook of Material Culture Studies introduces and reviews current thinking in the interdisciplinary field of material culture studies. Drawing together approaches from archaeology, anthropology, geography, and Science and Technology Studies, through twenty-eight specially commissioned essays by leading international researchers, the volume explores contemporary issues and debates in a series of themed sections - Disciplinary Perspectives, Material Practices, Objects and Humans, Landscapes and the Built Environment, and Studying Particular Things. From Coca-Cola, chimpanzees, artworks, and ceramics, to museums, cities, human bodies, and magical objects, the Handbook is an essential resource for anyone with an interest in materiality and the place of material objects in human social life, both past and present. A comprehensive bibliography enhances its usefulness as a research tool.
Written by an international team of experts, the Handbook makes accessible a full range of theoretical and applied approaches to the study of material culture, and the place of materiality in social theory, presenting current thinking about material culture from the fields of archaeology, anthropology, geography, and science and technology studies.
presents an impressive variety of ideas, and the conceptual implications of combining landscape archaeology, cultural primatology, horticultural archaeology, and material geographies with what archaeologists have traditionally thought of as material culture is deeply thought provoking and will have tremendous results within the field.
