Arthur Asa Berger - What Objects Mean: An Introduction to Material Culture

Second Edition

This book briefly explains six methodologies that you, the student, can use in various permutations and combinations to analyze material culture. These methodologies are:

Freudian Psychoanalytic Theory

Semiotic Theory

Sociological Theory

Marxist Theory

Cultural Theory

Archaeological Theory

I offer these theories because I believe the best way to make sense of objects and artifacts is to use relevant ideas and concepts from all of the theories in making your analysesthat is, for you to use a multidisciplinary approach to material culture.

After explaining these theories in I offer interpretations of a number of objects, based on the theories Ive explicated and using material from authors in various disciplines. I also apply a number of the concepts and theories found in the theory part of the book to these artifacts. I conclude each discussion of an artifact by offering some questions that will help you know what to look for as you analyze that and other artifacts. This book will help you learn how to make your own analyses and interpretations of objects and artifacts using combinations of semiotic, sociological, psychoanalytic, anthropological, economic (Marxist), and archaeological theories.

In I offer some games that ask you to apply what youve learned in the first two parts of the book. These learning games can be played in class in groups of three students (which Ive found to be the best arrangement) or can be assigned as homework. When I taught, I often used learning games in my courses and found that my students enjoyed them. At the same time, they learned a good deal from playing these games, because they were required to apply ideas and concepts they had learned.

The games can also be assigned as homework projects. That is, each student would be asked to play the game and come up with answers or whatever else was required. When I played the games in class, I selected one person as the scribe, whose duty was not only to participate in playing the game but also to record the answers the group decided upon. After wed devoted 20 or 30 minutes to the game, the scribes would report their teams answers to the class, and the whole class would then discuss the validity of the answers given by the various teams.

I believe that the best way for you to learn about material culture is for me to provide you with methodologies or techniques that you can use to make your own analyses of artifacts and objects of interest. Quite likely, youve already spent a good deal of time thinking about various objects and other kinds of material culture (things you wanted to buy and things given to you), but youve probably never been exposed to methods that will help you understand how to make sense of the objects and artifacts that play such a big part in your and everyone elses lives.

I have selected those aspects of the theories I deal with that are most useful in analyzing material culture and have not attempted a comprehensive look at any of the disciplines. I think using a number of disciplines will provide you, my readers, with a broader perspective on material culture than single disciplinary approaches. As you will see, material culture is a subject of interest to people in many different disciplines in the social sciences and humanities. In this second edition of What Objects Mean: An Introduction to Material Culture you will find the following enhancements:

Martin Grotjahn on symbols

A new definition of the concept of culture

Clifford Geertz on symbols

Roland Barthes on the semiotics of objects

Jean Baudrillard on the system of objects

John Berger on advertising and objects

Erik Eriksons psychoanalytic theories applied to smartphones

Marcel Danesi on myth and culture

My explanation of the myth model applied to objects

A new learning game based on the myth model

New chapters on Blonde Hair Dye, Bagels, Manga, and the American Flag

An updated chapter on technology and smartphones, sociability, and Facebook

I hope you will find this new edition both interesting and useful, and that it will help you see the objects around you and the objects you own in new ways.

I want to thank Mitch Allen, whom Ive worked with since 1982, for suggesting I write this book and write a second edition of it five years later. We had lunch at a Dim Sum restaurant in San Francisco a number of years ago, and he thought it would be interesting for me to do more work on material culture. I had already written a book, Blooms Morning, that analyzed various artifacts and rituals in a typical Americans morning, so I was interested in trying my hand at the subject again. Originally, I was to write a book on methods and another one analyzing a large number of objects, but we finally decided it made more sense to put the two projects together into one book.