Material Selves

This rich and vibrant cornucopia of bottom-up, object driven studies brings fresh perspectives to the study of human-thing relations. Employing a diversity of examples and theoretical outlooks, the inter-disciplinary approach will stimulate research in material culture studies, archaeology and anthropology, museum and literary studies, sociology and media studies as much as in art history. * Ian Hodder, Dunlevie Family Professor Emeritus in the School of Humanities and Sciences, Stanford University, USA *This wide-ranging series of essays, spanning historical dress, jewellery, and contemporary artistic expression, shifts scholarly attention from object-centred exposition to the discursive narrative around objects in the construction of subjecthood. Through a series of relationships always in contextual flux, object and human biographies intertwine to reveal the formation of material selves. * Edward S. Cooke, Jr., Charles F. Montgomery Professor of the History of Art, Yale University, USA *

Alex Burchmore is Lecturer in Art History and Curatorial Studies at the Australian National University, Australia. He is the author of New Export China: Translations Across Time and Place in Contemporary Chinese Porcelain Art (2023).