ARCH 2450, Spring 2008
Comparative Empires and Material Culture
http://proteus.brown.edu/empiresmaterialculture/Home
Wednesday, 3:00-5:20 PM
Joukowsky Institute, Rm 203
Instructor: Diana Ng
Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
70 Waterman Street
diana_ng@brown.edu
Office hours: Wednesday 10:00 AM-12:00 PM
This seminar investigates the role of material culture in the interactions and
relationships between empires and their subjects. In The Location of Culture, Homi
Bhabha argued that from an encounter between an imperialist culture and a colonial
culture comes something new, a cultural hybrid, that draws from both sources but
stands on its own. This new cultural hybrids engages with, and subverts, the dominant
culture, according to Bhabha’s analysis. We will take Bhabha’s concept of cultural
hybridity as a starting point in our explorations, asking if hybridity occurs in all
imperialist contexts and how this hybridity manifests itself in material culture. We will
also challenge the idea of subversion proposed by Bhabha, and investigate other factors
related to cultural blending, such as taste, elite emulation, and assimilation for
advancement.
In addition, this seminar will also address the question—through a focus on the
act of collecting—of the valuation of material culture in an imperialist context. What
objects are valued highly by cultures as they come into contact, and why? What
ideologies underpin the formation of imperial collections? When these colonial
collections and prized possessions are seen through our post-colonial eyes, what is it
that we find of value and of interest? How do modern eyes, trained under Western
cultural influence, perceive hybrids formed centuries ago?
The explorations of this seminar will be focused on four empires, broadly
defined: the Roman, the Chinese, the British, and the American. As we will see, these
empires—their narratives, ideologies, and legacies—are intertwined; the lives of these
empires inform each other as models as cautionary tales, depending on historical
circumstances. Therefore, this seminar will focus on each case study in turn but will
seek to identify underlying characteristics and practices that exist in all cases, so as to
construct a unified study of comparative empires and material cultures.
In addition to these explorations, there will be focused studies of examples of
material culture. Individuals or groups of students (depending on class size) will
choose a type of artifact (e.g. public architecture, funerary architecture/goods, luxury
items, etc.) found in all four empires, compare them, and present their findings to the
seminar. A short (5 pages) individually written paper will be expected from this
analysis. This material will form the basis for the creation of a ‘virtual exhibit’ of these
illustrative artifacts, which is envisioned as a long-term outcome of this class. The last
part of the seminar will be dedicated both to the final preparation and review of the
virtual exhibit, and presentation of individual final papers (20 pages) related to specific
objects or to themes covered in the class.
Aspects of this class will be undertaken in conjunction with members of the
faculty and/or students of the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK), including a
class taught by CUHK faculty member, Prof. Jenny So. The virtual exhibit of artifacts
will also be conceived jointly with CUHK faculty and students, and will draw upon the
collections of Brown, RISD, and the Art Museum of CUHK.
Course assessment:
1)
Active participation in class discussion (25%)
2)
Individual or group presentation of artifact type, with individually
written 5 page report (25%)
3)
Presentation of final project and final paper of 16-20 pages in length (50%)
Seminar schedule
Week of:
January 23: Introduction
Readings:
Selections from H. Bhabha, The Location of Culture: ‘Introduction: Locations of Culture’;
‘Articulating the archaic: cultural difference and colonial nonsense; ‘The
Postcolonial and the Postmodern: the question of agency’; ‘How newness enters
the world: Postmodern space, postcolonial times and the trials of cultural
translation’
January 30: What is an empire?
Readings:
J. F. Cherry, ed. The Archaeology of Empires. World Archaeology 23:2 (to be split up among
students)
‘Part I: Sources, approaches, definitions’ in S.E. Alcock, T.N. D’Altroy, K.D. Morrision,
and C.M. Sinopoli, eds., Empires: Perspectives from Archaeology and History (2001)
C. Sinopoli, ‘The archaeology of empires’. Annual Review of Anthropology 23 (1994)
February 6: Colonialism, culture, and collecting
Readings:
N. Thomas. Entangled Objects: Exchange, Material Culture, and Colonialism in the Pacific,
Chapter 3 ‘The Indigenous Appropriation of European Things’ and Chapter 4
‘The European Appropriation of Indigenous Things’
C. Gosden and C. Knowles. Collecting Colonialism, Material Culture and Colonial Change,
Chapter 1, ‘ People, Objects and Colonial Relations’; Chapter 3, ‘The Collectors
and their Collections’
T. Bennett. The Birth of the Museum: History, theory, politics, Chapter 3, ‘The political
rationality of the Museum’
S. Macdonald, ed. A Companion to Museum Studies, R. Beier-de Haan, ‘Re-staging
Histories and Identities’
G. Wright, ed. The Formation of National Collections of Art and Archaeology, G. Wright
‘National Culture under Colonial Auspices: The École Française d’ExtrêmeOrient’; A. Coombes ‘Ethnography, Popular Culture, and Institutional Power:
Narratives of Benin Culture in the British Museum, 1897-1992’
February 13: The Roman Empire
Readings:
P. Zanker. The Power of Images in the Age of Augustus, selections
R. R. R. Smith, ‘Cultural Choice and Political Identity in Honorific Portraits in the Greek
East in the Second Century AD’, JRS v. 88 (1988)
S. Scott and J. Webster, eds. Roman Imperialsim and Provincial Art (2003), J. Webster ‘Art
as resistance and negotiation’
S.E. Alcock, T.N. D’Altroy, K.D. Morrison, and C.M. Sinopoli, eds. Empires: Perspectives
from Archaeology and History (2001), G. Woolf, ‘Inventing empire in ancient Rome’
A. Bounia, The Nature of Classical Collecting, Collectors and Collections 100 BCE-100 CE,
Chapter 2 ‘Collecting Material Testimonies: antiquarianism and notions of the
past’; Chapter 6 ‘Visiting Pliny’s Collection: reading a ‘museum’; Chapter 9
‘’Furnishing’ the Collector’s World: Cicero’s Epistulae and the Verrine Orations’
February 20: The British Empire
Readings:
D. Cannadine, Ornamentalism: How the British saw their empire (2002), selections
N. Eaton, ‘Nostalgia for the Exotic: Creating an Imperial Art in London, 1750-1793’,
Eighteenth Century Studies v. 39 (2006)
P. Cain and T. Hopkins, British Imperialism, 1690-2000 (2000), Chapter 1 ‘The Problem
and the Context’
S. Cheang, ‘Women, Pets, and Imperialism: The British Pekingese Dog and Nostalgia
for Old China’, Journal of British Studies, v. 45 (2006)
T. Barringer and T. Flynn, eds. Colonialism and the Object: Empire, material culture, and the
museum. T. Barringer, ‘The South Kensington Museum and the colonial project’;
C. Clunas, ‘China in Britain: The imperial collections’; N. Ata-Ullah, ‘Stylistic
hybridity and colonial art and design education: a wooden carved screen by Ram
Singh’
February 27: The American Empire
Readings:
S. Lens, The Forging of the American Empire, from the Revolution to Vietnam: a History of
American Imperialism (2003), selections
D. Harvey, The New Imperialism (2003), selections
S. Dyson, Ancient Marbles to American Shores, Classical Archaeology in the United States,
Chapter 2 ‘The Creation of Classical Archaeology in America’; Chapter 4 ‘The
Formation of the Museum Tradition’
J. Tomlinson, Cultural Imperialism, a Critical Introduction (1991), selections
R. Laurence Moore and M. Vaudagna, eds. The American Century in Europe (2003); A.
Brinkley, ‘The Concept of an American Century’; D. Ellwood, ‘American Myth,
American Model, and the Quest for British Modernity’; V. Berghahn, ‘European
Elitism, American Money, and Popular Culture’
March 5: The Chinese Empire
Readings to be assigned by Prof. Jenny So, CUHK
March 12: Individual or group artifact/image presentations
Readings to be determined based on artifacts chosen by students
March 19: Individual or group artifact/image presenations
Readings to be determined based on artifacts chosen by students
March 26: Spring Break, no class meeting
April 2: Individual or group artifact/image presentations
Readings to be determined based on artifacts chosen by students
April 9: Presentations of final projects/contributions to virtual exhibition
Readings to be assigned by presenting students
April 16: Presentations of final projects/contributions to virtual exhibition
Readings to be assigned by presenting students
April 23: Presentations of final projects/contributions to virtual exhibition
Readings to be assigned by presenting students
Final papers are due May 8, with no exception.