MATERIALITY
Medieval Conflicts and their Remains
Dr. phil. Heinrich Speich MAS
Department of Auxiliary Historical Sciences and Archive Studies
243104@phil.muni.cz
Room G02, Fr. 04.11.2022
2
Content 04.11.2022
1. Discussion on : Stollberg-Rilinger, Macht und Dinge.
Olsen, In Defense of Things. Johannesson/Machicek, War
and Peace.
2. individual project and reading plan
Reading: Schramm, Herrschaftszeichen. Moździoch,
Consensus, etc.
Further session: Fr. 09.12.2022
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
3
1. Positions
Bjørnar Olsen, In defense of things, Altamira Press, Langham 2013.
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
4
1. Positions
Olsen, In Defense of Things (S. 3)
…material culture and landscapes are sites of
«inscription», metaphorical «stand-ins» that always
represtent something else and more importantly: the
«social», the «cultural», the «political,» and so forthall
implicitly conceived of as extramaterial entities…
Are there categories of materiality for itself at all ?
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
5
1. Positions
Olsen, In Defense of Things (S. 7)
…somatic theory, somatic turn…
Are there categories of materiality outside human
bodies that influence the world ?
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
6
1. Positions
Olsen, In Defense of Things (S. 12)
… poststructuralism and actor-network theory…
…Do they help us to come to grips with how things
relate to us, and can they help in explaining the sad
fate of things in our talkative discourses? …
Is the Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) a relevant theory?
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
7
1. Positions
Olsen, In Defense of Things (S. 25)
…processualists or «new» archaeologists who were
concerned with explaining things’ functional,
technological, and adaptive importance…
…postprocessualists struggling to interpret their social
and cultural meaning…
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
8
1. Positions
Olsen, In Defense of Things (S. 69)
…Our everyday dealing with things (Umgang) relates to
a mode of being that is ontologically fundamental and
prior to any conscious (detached) cognition of the
world»… (Heidegger)
… In this state, we do not «see» the thing but are
practically and skillfully involved with it. (…)
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
9
1. Positions
Olsen, In Defense of Things (S. 108)
…At every moment the materials of the world confront
us with a great patchwork of coexisting temproal
horizons that create networks and connections between
different times, different pasts.»
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
10
1. Positions
Olsen, In Defense of Things (S. 135)
…All material expressions, art objects included, are
rather about doing, and we schold be concerned with
‘exploring the domain in which objects merge with
people’. (Gell 1998)
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
11
1. Positions
Olsen, In Defense of Things (S. 138)
…ANT. (Latour 1986)
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
12
1. Positions
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
13
1. Positions
Christina Antenhofer, Die Familienkiste. Mensch-Objekt-Beziehungen
im Mittelalter und in der Renaissance, 2 vol., Ostfildern 2022.
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
14
1. Positions
Renata Ago, The Gusto for things. A History of Objects in SeventeenthCentury
Rome, University of Chicago Press 2013 (1st ed. 2006).
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
15
Chapter planning
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
1. Basic structure of the work/book
2. Research-questions concerning materiality:
- Own chapter or integration ?
- Internal structure of the chapter ?
3. Title and content development
4. Verification process
16
6. Individual learning plan
a. Aim
b. Project work
c. Individual reading
d. Output definition
e. Output control and evaluation
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022
17
6. Next steps
a. Readings:
Christina Antenhofer, Die Familienkiste. Mensch-Objekt-Beziehungen im Mittelalter
und in der Renaissance, 2 vol., Ostfildern 2022.
Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger, Macht und Dinge, in: Handbuch Materielle Kultur.
Bedeutungen, Konzepte, Disziplinen, ed. by S.Samida/M. Eggert/H.P. Hahn,
Darmstadt 2014, p. 85-88.
Bjørnar Olsen, In Defense of Things, Lanham 2010, p. 1-19.
Erik G. Johannesson, Michelle L. Machicek, War and Peace. A Reassessment of the
Archeological Traces of Warfare, Inter-Personal Violence and Peace in the Material
Record, in: Archeological Review from Cambridge 25.1, April 2010, p. 13-28.
Gerhard Jaritz, Zwischen Augenblick und Ewigkeit. Einführung in die
Alltagsgeschichte des Mittelalters, Wien 1989.
Heinrich Speich, BA-Seminary MATERIALITY, nov 4, 2022