Archaeologies of Materiality

Lynn Meskell (Ph.D. University of Cambridge) is Professor of Cultural and Social Anthropology at Stanford University. She is the founding editor of the Journal of Social Archaeology and has published numerous articles and books including Archaeology under Fire (ed. 1998), Archaeologies of Social Life (Blackwell 1999), Private Life in New Kingdom Egypt (2001), Embodied Lives: Figuring Ancient Maya and Egyptian Experience (with Rosemary Joyce, 2003), Object Worlds in Ancient Egypt: Material Biographies Past and Present (2004), Companion to Social Archaeology (ed. with Robert Preucel, Blackwell 2004), and Embedding Ethics (ed. with Peter Pels, 2005).

List of Figures. Acknowledgments.

Notes on Contributors.

1. Introduction: Object Orientations: Lynn Meskell.

2. Mastering Matters: Magical Sense and the Apotropaic Figure Worlds: Carolyn Nakamura.

3. The Social life of Rocks: Lindsay Weiss.

4. With a Hint of Paris in the Mouth: Fetishized Toothbrushes or the Sensuous Experience of Modernity in Late 19th-Century Bogotá: Felipe Gaitán.

5. Faith in Objects: American Indian Object Lessons at the World in Boston: Erin Hasinoff.

6. The Texture of Things: Objects, People, and Social Spaces in Argentine Prehistory: Marisa Lazzari.

7. Building an Architecture of Power: Electricity in Annapolis, Maryland: Matt Palus.

8. Materiality vs. the Volcano: The Hitherto Unthinkable Wildness of the Volcán Barú, Panamá: Karen Holmberg.

Afterword: Daniel Miller.

Index