Writing in his article “Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method”, Jules Prown offers the following: [M]aterial culture is singular as a mode of cultural investigation in its use of objects as primary data, but in its scholarly purposes it can be considered a branch of cultural history or cultural anthropology.
It is a means rather than an end, a discipline rather than a field. In this, material culture differs from art history for example, which is both a discipline (a mode of investigation) in its study of history through art and a field, a subject of investigation. Material culture is comparable to art history as a discipline in its study of culture through artifacts. As such, it provides a scholarly approach to artifacts that can be utilized by investigators in variety of fields. But the material of material culture is too diverse to constitute a single field.
In practice it consists of subfields investigated by specialists – cultural geographers or historians of art, architecture, decorative arts, science and technology. [ Jules Prown, Mind in Matter: An Introduction to Material Culture Theory and Method”, Winterthur Portfolio, Vol. 17, No. 1 (Spring, 1982), pp. 1-19, [p.1] https://www.jstor.org/stable/1180761 ] In thinking about the study of furniture – the history of furniture to be more exact – the question of the relationship of this area of knowledge and investigation to other similar areas of the study of social existence invariably arises. Please write an essay that considers the study of furniture (as a historical exercise) and the interpretive and / or methodological issues that must / or could attend such a critical undertaking.
Your essay should deal with issues of theory and interpretation and should offer informed and detailed examples from the “history” of furniture where applicable. The essay will be assessed for the structure of its thesis, the rigor of its argumentation and its effective use of evidence.
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