The Spirit of Matter

Peter Pels is a Professor of Anthropology of Africa at the University of Leiden. He edited the journal Social Anthropology (2003-2007) and advised the Çatalhöyük excavation project led by Ian Hodder (2005-14). His most recent publication is Museum Temporalities: Time, History and the Future of the Ethnographic Museum (Routledge, 2023) which is co-edited with Wayne Modest.

List of Figures

Preface

Acknowledgments



Part I: Introduction



Chapter 1. The Auto-Icon, or: What a Secularist Relic Says about Modern Dematerializations

Chapter 2. Towards a Methodology of the Concrete



Part II: Fetish and the Fear of Matter



Chapter 3. The Spirit of Matter: On Fetish, Rarity, Fact and Fancy

Chapter 4. The Modern Fear of Matter: Reflections on the Protestantism of Victorian Science



Part III: Do Catholics See Things Differently?



Chapter 5. Trophy and Wonder, or: Bodies at the Exhibition

Chapter 6. Africa Christo! The Materiality of Photographs in Dutch Catholic Mission Propaganda, 1946-1960

Chapter 7. “I am Black, but Comely”: Mission, Modernity and the Power of Objects in the Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal

Chapter 8. Conclusion: The Powers of Miming “Africa”



Part IV: The Time of Things



Chapter 9. Things in Time: Commodity Fetishism before Advertising

Chapter 10. False Consciousness? The Rise of Advertising



In Lieu of a Conclusion: The Future of Things



References

Index