Cultural Anthropology:material Approaches in Post-Colonial World
A.Y. 2025/2026
Learning objectives
Undefined
Expected learning outcomes
Undefined
Lesson period: Second semester
Assessment methods: Esame
Assessment result: voto verbalizzato in trentesimi
Single course
This course cannot be attended as a single course. Please check our list of single courses to find the ones available for enrolment.
Course syllabus and organization
Single session
Responsible
Lesson period
Second semester
Course syllabus
The course is divided into five teaching sections:
Section 1: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
In this section, students will learn:
- What anthropology is
- When it was born
- What cultural relativism and the Boas approach are
- The history of anthropological museums, from Wunderkammern to the Museum of World Cultures.
- The role of indigenous people in museums
· Issues of repatriation and reparations
Section 2: Introduction to the material approach
In this section, students will learn:
· The main strategy for cataloguing and documenting anthropological objects from a post-colonial perspective
- the ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) methodology
- Digital and paper documentation
- What provenance research is and which tools can be used
Section 3: The Material Approach in Practice-Activity at MUDEC (or alternatively in-class laboratory activity)
Practical application of methodologies and theoretical tools learned
Exercises and analysis of museum case studies
Section 4: The Material Legacy of Native Americans in Europe
History of the circulation of American objects to Europe
Controversies over Native American cultural heritage
Managing archaeological sites in South America: examples and models
Section 5: The Legacy of East Asia in Europe
Brief history of Asian objects in Europe from the "Porcelain Fever" (16th-19th centuries) to Japaneseism
Case Study: Traces of the "Boxer War" in German museum collections, in collaboration with the Peking Palace Museum.
Section 1: Introduction to Cultural Anthropology
In this section, students will learn:
- What anthropology is
- When it was born
- What cultural relativism and the Boas approach are
- The history of anthropological museums, from Wunderkammern to the Museum of World Cultures.
- The role of indigenous people in museums
· Issues of repatriation and reparations
Section 2: Introduction to the material approach
In this section, students will learn:
· The main strategy for cataloguing and documenting anthropological objects from a post-colonial perspective
- the ICCD (Istituto Centrale per il Catalogo e la Documentazione) methodology
- Digital and paper documentation
- What provenance research is and which tools can be used
Section 3: The Material Approach in Practice-Activity at MUDEC (or alternatively in-class laboratory activity)
Practical application of methodologies and theoretical tools learned
Exercises and analysis of museum case studies
Section 4: The Material Legacy of Native Americans in Europe
History of the circulation of American objects to Europe
Controversies over Native American cultural heritage
Managing archaeological sites in South America: examples and models
Section 5: The Legacy of East Asia in Europe
Brief history of Asian objects in Europe from the "Porcelain Fever" (16th-19th centuries) to Japaneseism
Case Study: Traces of the "Boxer War" in German museum collections, in collaboration with the Peking Palace Museum.
Prerequisites for admission
Students who want to attend this course are not required to possess any prerequisite for admission.
Teaching methods
Teaching sessions consist of lectures (with the aid of PowerPoint presentations and multimedia) and class discussions. According to the number of students, we will spend two days working in the storerooms and laboratories of Mudec (the Museum of Cultures in Milan), where we will experience first-hand the daily work of an anthropological museum. Alternatively, classroom workshop activities will be offered.
Teaching Resources
AAVV Du musée colonial au musée des cultures du monde. Actes du colloque, Musée national des Arts d'Afrique et d'Océanie & Centre Georges-Pompidou, 3-6 giugno 1998.
AAVV. MUDEC - Global Milan. Museum of Cultures Collection Catalogue and Exhibition Guide. Milano: 24 Ore Cultura.
Ames, M. M. Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes: The Anthropology of Museums.
Appadurai, A. (Ed.). (1986). The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blanchard, P., & Boëtsch, G. (2011). Exhibitions: L'invention du sauvage.
Boas, F. (1955). Primitive Art. New York: Dover Publications.
Clifford, J. (1988). The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Crosby, A. W. (2003). The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (30th Anniversary Edition). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Delpuech, A., Laurière, C., & Peltier-Caroff, C. (Eds.). (2017). Les années folles de l'ethnographie: Trocadero 28-37. Paris: Publications scientifiques du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle.
Dematté, P. (2013). Emperors and Scholars: Collecting Culture and Late Imperial Antiquarianism. In V. Rujivacharakul (Ed.), Collecting China: The World, China, and a History of Collecting. Newark: University of Delaware Press.
Gell, A. (1988). Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory.
Hill, K. (Ed.). Museums and Biographies: Stories, Objects, Identities. Heritage Matters Vol. 9. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
Hodder, I. (1985). Post-processual Archaeology. In Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 8.
Impey, O., MacGregor, A. (Eds.). The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
La Porte, S., & Dagen, P. (2013). Charles Ratton. L'invention des Arts "Primitifs". Milan: Skira.
Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Routledge.
The Machu Picchu Affair. Retrieved from: https://yris.yira.org/essays/third-place-repatriating-machu-picchu-on-the-yale-peruvian-expedition-and-the-imperialism-of-archaeology/
Orsini, C. Global Milan. An Innovative Collection Display Between Participation and Controversy. Milano.
Orsini, C., Venturoli, S., Benozzi, E., & Asencios Aliz Ibarra. (2024). Il Progetto Arts ("Arte Tradizionale per lo Sviluppo"): Un'archeologia da e per le comunità nella zona della Sierra di Ancash (Perù). In V. Polito & G. Volpe (Eds.), Patrimonio culturale e comunità in trasformazione. Bari: Edipuglia.
Orsini, C., & Antonini, A. (Eds.). Museum of Cultures. Objects of Encounters. Catalogue of Works and Exhibit Guide. Milan: Il Sole 24 Ore, pp. 18-31.
Pauketat, T. R. (2007). Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.
Said, E. (1991). Orientalism: Western Concepts of the Orient, Penguin History.
Savoy, B., Guichard, C., & Howald, C. (Eds.). (2018). Acquiring Cultures: Histories of World Art on Western Markets. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Service, E. R. (1962). Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Random House.
Tompkins, A. (2021). Provenance Research Today: Principles, Practice, Problems. London: Lund Humphries.
Turner, H. (2020). Cataloguing Culture: Legacies of Colonialism in Museum Documentation.
Visconti, C. (2019). Un secolo di archeologia cinese: Storia della disciplina dall'inizio del XX secolo ai giorni nostri. Milano: Mondadori.
Willey, G., et al. (1953). Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Virú Valley, Peru. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 155.
This is a basic selection of reading. Articles and book chapters will be proposed during the course and will be uploaded in myariel platform.
AAVV. MUDEC - Global Milan. Museum of Cultures Collection Catalogue and Exhibition Guide. Milano: 24 Ore Cultura.
Ames, M. M. Cannibal Tours and Glass Boxes: The Anthropology of Museums.
Appadurai, A. (Ed.). (1986). The Social Life of Things. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blanchard, P., & Boëtsch, G. (2011). Exhibitions: L'invention du sauvage.
Boas, F. (1955). Primitive Art. New York: Dover Publications.
Clifford, J. (1988). The Predicament of Culture: Twentieth-Century Ethnography, Literature, and Art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Crosby, A. W. (2003). The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Consequences of 1492 (30th Anniversary Edition). Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers.
Delpuech, A., Laurière, C., & Peltier-Caroff, C. (Eds.). (2017). Les années folles de l'ethnographie: Trocadero 28-37. Paris: Publications scientifiques du Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle.
Dematté, P. (2013). Emperors and Scholars: Collecting Culture and Late Imperial Antiquarianism. In V. Rujivacharakul (Ed.), Collecting China: The World, China, and a History of Collecting. Newark: University of Delaware Press.
Gell, A. (1988). Art and Agency: An Anthropological Theory.
Hill, K. (Ed.). Museums and Biographies: Stories, Objects, Identities. Heritage Matters Vol. 9. Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer.
Hodder, I. (1985). Post-processual Archaeology. In Advances in Archaeological Method and Theory, Vol. 8.
Impey, O., MacGregor, A. (Eds.). The Origins of Museums: The Cabinet of Curiosities in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
La Porte, S., & Dagen, P. (2013). Charles Ratton. L'invention des Arts "Primitifs". Milan: Skira.
Malinowski, B. (1922). Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea. London: Routledge.
The Machu Picchu Affair. Retrieved from: https://yris.yira.org/essays/third-place-repatriating-machu-picchu-on-the-yale-peruvian-expedition-and-the-imperialism-of-archaeology/
Orsini, C. Global Milan. An Innovative Collection Display Between Participation and Controversy. Milano.
Orsini, C., Venturoli, S., Benozzi, E., & Asencios Aliz Ibarra. (2024). Il Progetto Arts ("Arte Tradizionale per lo Sviluppo"): Un'archeologia da e per le comunità nella zona della Sierra di Ancash (Perù). In V. Polito & G. Volpe (Eds.), Patrimonio culturale e comunità in trasformazione. Bari: Edipuglia.
Orsini, C., & Antonini, A. (Eds.). Museum of Cultures. Objects of Encounters. Catalogue of Works and Exhibit Guide. Milan: Il Sole 24 Ore, pp. 18-31.
Pauketat, T. R. (2007). Chiefdoms and Other Archaeological Delusions. Lanham, MD: AltaMira Press.
Said, E. (1991). Orientalism: Western Concepts of the Orient, Penguin History.
Savoy, B., Guichard, C., & Howald, C. (Eds.). (2018). Acquiring Cultures: Histories of World Art on Western Markets. Berlin: De Gruyter.
Service, E. R. (1962). Primitive Social Organization: An Evolutionary Perspective. New York: Random House.
Tompkins, A. (2021). Provenance Research Today: Principles, Practice, Problems. London: Lund Humphries.
Turner, H. (2020). Cataloguing Culture: Legacies of Colonialism in Museum Documentation.
Visconti, C. (2019). Un secolo di archeologia cinese: Storia della disciplina dall'inizio del XX secolo ai giorni nostri. Milano: Mondadori.
Willey, G., et al. (1953). Prehistoric Settlement Patterns in the Virú Valley, Peru. Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 155.
This is a basic selection of reading. Articles and book chapters will be proposed during the course and will be uploaded in myariel platform.
Assessment methods and Criteria
Class discussions will be encouraged during the course and exercises will be offered. Students who attend at least 75% of the lectures are considered attendees. Attendees will take a final test that will consist of 31 questions with both closed and open answers. They will also have to submit a short essay, the topic of which will be agreed upon in class. Non-attendees should contact the professor for an alternative program, which will consist of submitting at least two books of their choice from those offered in the bibliography.
M-DEA/01 - DEMOLOGY, ETHNOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY - University credits: 9
Lessons: 60 hours
Professor:
Orsini Carolina
Professor(s)