Material Culture: Material Nature

We are living in a material world (Madonna, 1984). Why do you love your phone, or car, or shoes so much? Each week this course explores a moment in the human experience: childhood and coming of age, marriage and divorce, home-making and transience, grief, death, and burial. In thinking about the material culture of past societies, we will challenge archaeological concepts of acculturation and cultural appropriation. And, in examining our own everyday objects we will contemplate how style impacts identity -- or vice versa.