The Cultures of Collecting - Softcover

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0674179935 ISBN 13: 9780674179936

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1994

Synopsis

This book traces the psychology, history and theory of the compulsion to collect, focusing not just on the normative collections of the Western canon, but also on collections that reflect a fascination with the "Other" and the marginal – the ephemeral, exotic, or just plain curious.

There are essays on the Neoclassical architect Sir John Soane, Sigmund Freud and Kurt Schwitters, one of the masters of collage. Others examine imperialist encounters with remote cultures – the consquitadors in America in the sixteenth century, and the British in the Pacific in the eighteenth – and the more recent collectors of popular culture, be they of Swatch watches, Elvis Presley memorabilia or of packaging and advertising.

With essays by Jean Baudrillard, Thomas DaCosta Kaufmann, Nicholas Thomas, Mieke Bal, John Forrester, John Windsor, Naomi Schor, Susan Stewart, Anthony Alan Shelton, John Elsner, Roger Cardinal and an interview with Robert Opie.

About this title

About the Author:

John Elsner is a Lecturer in Classical and Early Christian Art at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London.

From Library Journal:

The editors have assembled a series of essays on the human propensity to collect and organize whose very diversity of style makes it hard to decide of what value it would be to most libraries. Written by scholars from both sides of the Atlantic, the essays wander superficially through art history, psychoanalysis, literature, world history, and pop culture. Some of the entries are interesting, but most are simply incomprehensible. Too often the bad ones are written in an opaque, academic style that tells little about how certain collections were amassed or what made them noteworthy as collections. Except for scholars used to struggling with "profes-sorspeak," most readers will find this book to be indecipherable and not particularly enlightening. Not recommended.
Margarete Gross, Chicago P.L.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1994
• ISBN 10: 0674179935
• ISBN 13: 9780674179936
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 320
• Editor: Elsner John, Cardinal Roger