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Texts of the Old Testament and the literature of the European Middle Ages feature a number of narratives about objects on which something is written. In this volume, scholars from the fields of Old Testament studies, Jewish studies, and medieval literary studies examine approaches for analyzing such stories and their narrating and narrated objects.

Material culture, materiality --- writing

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Writing as Material Practice grapples with the issue of writing as a form of material culture in its ancient and more recent manifestations, and in the contexts of production and consumption. Fifteen case studies explore the artefactual nature of writing — the ways in which materials, techniques, colour, scale, orientation and visibility inform the creation of inscribed objects and spaces, as well as structure subsequent engagement, perception and meaning making. Covering a temporal span of some 5000 years, from c.3200 BCE to the present day, and ranging in spatial context from the Americas to the Near East, the chapters in this volume bring a variety of perspectives which contribute to both specific and broader questions of writing materialities.
The authors also aim to place past graphical systems in their social contexts so they can be understood in relation to the people who created and attributed meaning to writing and associated symbolic modes through a diverse array of individual and wider social practices.
(DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bai)

material culture --- artefact --- archaeology --- symbolism --- writing

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This volume encompasses a broad span of issues related to borders as areas of intense activity substantially contributing to the dynamics of culture. The chapters address questions relating to the construction and reconstruction of borders, as well as the experience and representation of physical, spiritual, imagined and symbolic borders. The authors provide perspectives on emerging and dissolving borders in the past and present. Special emphasis is placed on subjective perception by asking how borders are experienced and expressed at the level of the specific community or individual. Several articles tackle dramatic and controversial issues like war, conflict between different ideologies and cultures, and remembering. The authors also explore dialectical relations between culture, social relations and landscape, and the interplay of ideological constructions and material culture. The contributions are arranged into two sections focusing on two wider issues: how borders are drawn in landscape, religion and scientific discourse (Wandering borders), and how representations of cultural borders and border crossings have changed over time (Bordering ruptures: the dynamics of self-description). The authors of this volume come from various scholarly fields and offer innovative tools for expanding the concept of the border across disciplinary frames.

material culture --- memory --- war --- religion --- border --- landscape

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The integration of science with art is a complex process of analysis and the knowledge and understanding of the need to save and protect works of art as well as preserve and restore cultural heritage. This is generally provoked by the living necessity, profoundly human, to leave our inheritance to new generations, as intact as is possible, the testimonies of the past.The issues approached interfere with artistic criticism, for example, biological and physico-chemical analyses, and intelligent mathematical modeling systems such as Marker-less Augmented Reality, 3D Reconstruction, intelligent combinations of digital image analysis functions to recognize and estimate the possible evolution of color and shape to help experts make the best decisions about authenticating and preserving-restoring art objects.Advanced technical devices such as digital databases and other tools and materials can allow for the eradication of offenses such as false art and falsification.

Social Sciences and Humanities --- Social Sciences --- Archaeology --- Material Culture

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In May of 1868, Elizabeth Bingham Young and her new husband, Egerton Ryerson Young, began a long journey from Hamilton, Ontario, to the Methodist mission of Rossville. For the next eight years, Elizabeth supported her husband’s work at two mission houses, Norway House and then Berens River. Unprepared for the difficult conditions and the “eight months long” winter, and unimpressed with “eating fish twenty-one times a week,” the young Upper Canada wife rose to the challenge. In these remote outposts, she gave birth to three children, acted as a nurse and doctor, and applied both perseverance and determination to learning Cree, while also coping with poverty and short supplies within her community. Her account of mission life, as seen through the eyes of a woman, is the first of its kind to be archived and now to appear in print.Accompanying Elizabeth’s memoir, and offering a counterpoint to it, are the reminiscences of her eldest son, “Eddie.” Born at Norway House in 1869 and nursed by a Cree woman from infancy, Eddie was immersed in local Cree and Ojibwe life, culture, and language, in many ways exemplifying the process of reverse acculturation often in evidence among the children of missionaries. Like those of his mother, Eddie’s memories capture the sensory and emotional texture of mission life, providing a portrait that is startling in its immediacy.Skillfully woven together and meticulously annotated by Jennifer Brown, these two remarkable recollections of mission life are an invaluable addition to the fields of religious, missionary, and Aboriginal history. In their power to resurrect experience, they are also a fascination to read.

Egerton Ryerson Young, Rossville Mission, Norway House, Methodist missionary, Cree, Ojibwe, material culture