Anth 3520                                 Notes from First Class, 9 Jan 2006                                 Dr. Kathryn Denning

The Social Lives of Places and Things

Your Homework for Next Week's Class, on 16 January

This is a small writing assignment designed to help me get to know you as students, and to help you to start thinking about the social lives of places and things. It should be no more than 700 words long – be concise. Your tasks:

a) Write a paragraph answering these questions: What do you hope to gain from this course? What interests you about material culture and/or the archaeology of the contemporary past? How does this connect with your background, life experience, or other courses you've taken? Please specify your year of study, your major, and related courses you've taken.

b) As you go through your ordinary activities this week, pay close attention to the things you use, and the places you move through. Think, for example, about the biography of a paper coffee cup, or a pen, or a mobile phone. Where do these things come from? What do they mean to you? How do they play a role in your own social life? What is their role in our culture, generally?  Or think, for example, about a shopping mall or a place in the university. How does the building dictate the activities of the people within it? Does it tell you how to move, or how to interact? Write a paragraph about your example, and suggest some of the ways that material culture affects our lives.

This is worth 1% of your class participation mark for the year. Be ready to talk about your answer to (b) in class. Please hand the assignment in at class next week on 16 January. On the first page of your assignment, clearly write: your name and student number, the course number & name, and my name.

Reading to do for next class, 16 January.

Our initial readings in this course are on general issues in material culture.

Required: Tim Dant. 1999. Material Culture in the Social World: Values, Activities, Lifestyles. Open University Press. ISBN: 033519821X.  pages 1-59

Copies are available in the bookstore, and there is also a copy on reserve at Scott Library.

I also strongly recommend that you preview this entire book, and the others, to start to form a ‘mental map’ of the course.