AMST 583 - The Material Culture of Early America: Artifacts as Design and as Commodities

Spring 3 Staff.

As groundwork for the interpretation of objects in museum exhibits, historic house museums, and a variety of scholarly studies, this course introduces techniques for visual analysis of artifacts and ideas about relationships between design, technology, production, and marketing of consumer goods. Students explore various theoretical approaches to the analysis of material culture, develop critical bibliographical skills, and learn to phrase questions (artistic, technological, economic, functional, social, and cultural) about objects. They explore a wide range of sources that may illuminate the questions, and they develop designs for research projects that may answer them. (Not offered 2013-2014)