Distributed Objects : Meaning and Mattering After Alfred Gell

One of the most influential anthropological works of the last two decades, Alfred Gell’s __Art and Agency__ is a provocative and ambitious work that both challenged and reshaped anthropological understandings of art, agency, creativity and the social. It has become a touchstone in contemporary artifact-based scholarship. This volume brings together leading anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians and other scholars into an interdisciplinary dialogue with __Art and Agency__, generating a timely re-engagement with the themes, issues and arguments at the heart of Gell’s work, which remains salient, and controversial, in the social sciences and humanities. Extending his theory into new territory – from music to literary technology and ontology to technological change – the contributors do not simply take stock, but also provoke, critically reassessing this important work while using it to challenge conceptual and disciplinary boundaries. 4e de couv.: One of the most influential anthropological works of the last two decades, Alfred Gell's Art and Agency is a provocative and ambitious work that both challenged and reshaped anthropological understandings of art, agency, creativity and the social. It has become a touchstone in contemporary artifact-based scholarship. This volume brings together leading anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians and other scholars into an interdisciplinary dialogue with Art and Agency, generating a timely re-engagement with the themes, issues and arguments at the heart of Gell's work, which remains salient, and controversial, in the social sciences and humanities. Extending his theory into new territory – from music to literary technology and ontology to technological change – the contributors do not simply take stock, but also provoke, critically reassessing this important work while using it to challenge conceptual and disciplinary boundaries CONTENTS LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PREFACE INTRODUCTION: ADVENTURES IN THE ART NEXUS CHAPTER 1 THREADS OF THOUGHT Reflections on Art and Agency CHAPTER 2 TECHNOLOGIES OF ROUTINE AND OF ENCHANTMENT CHAPTER 3 FIGURING OUT DEATH Sculpture and Agency at the Mausoleum of Halicarnassus and the Tomb of the First Emperor of China CHAPTER 4 THE NETWORK OF STANDARD STOPPAGES (C.1985) CHAPTER 5 GELL’S DUCHAMP/DUCHAMP’S GELL CHAPTER 6 MUSIC Ontology, Agency, Creativity CHAPTER 7 LITERARY ART AND AGENCY? Gell and the Magic of the Early Modern Book CHAPTER 8 ART, PERFORMANCE AND TIME’S PRESENCE Reflections on Temporality in Art and Agency CHAPTER 9 EPILOGUE NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS INDEX