More concepts

Taken from the movie The Corporation some concepts and ideas emerge from the background of the material culture embedded in the industrial (or post-industrial) society.

More Movies

Movies are the today narrative form for telling stories: they can be also a good workbench for an anthropological inquiry around a "domestic tool"...


Delicatessen (1990), directed by Marc Caro.


The General (1927), directed by Buster Keaton


The Corporation (2003), directed by Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott


Robots (2005), directed by Chris Wedge and Carlos Saldanha.


Apollo 13 (1995), directed by Ron Howard.

Concepts

In order to draw a conceptual map around the "domestic tool" object of the research, please choose from the above list, 5-7 concepts that can be developed to describe the "tool":

accuracy
biocompatibility
brilliance
cleanliness
costs
curiosity
durability
eco-compatibility
economy
elasticity
ergonomics
fetishism
finishing
flammability
flexibility
functionality
handicraft
handling
interchangeability
irony
lightness / heaviness
luxury
maintainability
measure
modularity
mysticism
mythology
pleasure
practicality
redundancy
resistance
safety
servicing
shape
sharpness
standard
strength
superstition
toxicity
traceability
transparency
transportability
triviality
uniformity
utility
value
variety
violence
workmanship

Ulysses by James Joyce

尤利西斯

This novel can be used as a literary test-rig for investigating the narrative context of the "domestic tools" subject to the inquiry.

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Some Movies, around the Material Culture

Modern Times, directed by Charlie Chaplin (1936)


Ten Canoes, directed by Rolf de Heer and Peter Djigirr (2006)


Sleeper, directed by Woody Allen (1973)

Students & Things

Every student must choose a "domestic tool" as object of his/her own inquiry.





For the first week a pictorial catalogue is required, as in the example of the "Achille Castiglioni hammers"

Starting point

The History of material culture starts from the human being. This discipline belongs to the Anthropology field and deals with the relationship between man and things.

Within the knowledge processes, things and their names are strictly correlated.