Peter Pels 
The Spirit of Matter [EPUB ebook] 
Modernity, Religion, and the Power of Objects

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A range of meaningful objects—exhibits of human remains or live people, fetishes, objects in a Catholic Museum, exotic photographs, commodities, and computers—demonstrate a subordinate modern consciousness about powerful objects and their ‘life’. The Spirit of Matter discusses these objects that move people emotionally but whose existence is often denied by modern wishful thinking of ‘mind over matter’. It traces this mindset back to Protestant Christian influences that were secularized in the course of modern and colonial history.

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Table of Content

List of Figures
Preface
Acknowledgments

Part I: Introduction

Chapter 1. The Auto-Icon, or: What a Secularist Relic Says about Modern Dematerializations
Chapter 2. Towards a Methodology of the Concrete

Part II: Fetish and the Fear of Matter

Chapter 3. The Spirit of Matter: On Fetish, Rarity, Fact and Fancy
Chapter 4. The Modern Fear of Matter: Reflections on the Protestantism of Victorian Science

Part III: Do Catholics See Things Differently?

Chapter 5. Trophy and Wonder, or: Bodies at the Exhibition
Chapter 6. Africa Christo! The Materiality of Photographs in Dutch Catholic Mission Propaganda, 1946-1960
Chapter 7. “I am Black, but Comely”: Mission, Modernity and the Power of Objects in the Afrika Museum, Berg en Dal
Chapter 8. Conclusion: The Powers of Miming “Africa”

Part IV: The Time of Things

Chapter 9. Things in Time: Commodity Fetishism before Advertising
Chapter 10. False Consciousness? The Rise of Advertising

In Lieu of a Conclusion: The Future of Things

References
Index

About the author


Peter Pels is a Professor of Anthropology of Africa at the University of Leiden. He edited the journal Social Anthropology (2003-2007) and advised the Çatalhöyük excavation project led by Ian Hodder (2005-14). His most recent publication is Museum Temporalities: Time, History and the Future of the Ethnographic Museum (Routledge, 2023) which is co-edited with Wayne Modest.

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Language English ● Format EPUB ● Pages 387 ● ISBN 9781805390152 ● File size 11.3 MB ● Publisher Berghahn Books ● City NY ● Country US ● Published 2023 ● Edition 1 ● Downloadable 24 months ● Currency EUR ● ID 9037337 ● Copy protection Adobe DRM
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