Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture (Hardcover)

The modern world around us is more mysterious than we think. This book looks beneath the surface of modern material culture to ask how the very stuff of our world has shaped our societies, and how and why it is that we have made the material culture that surrounds us. It offers a new approach to the study of contemporary objects, from academics prominent in disciplines ranging from archaeology to philosophy and psychology. All have diverse perspectives on what material culture is, but all are equally concerned with how the very material nature of artefacts comes to form human life. The questions they address include: why did the electric car fail? Why do Berliners have such strange door keys? Should the Isle of Wight pop festival be preserved? Why do autistic children have problems with objects? Could aliens tell a snail shell from a waste paper basket? Why did Victorian England make so much of death and burial? Taken together, the eight contributions in this book lead the reader to a new understanding of the relationship between people and their material world. They should be of great interest to everyone studying modern material culture.