Material Identities

Description:
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.

Table of Contents:
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.

Author Biography:
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).