Prologue for Week 10: Books, the Other White Meat

We’re going to keep thinking about historical context this week as we consider the material culture of More’s actual Europe and fictional Utopia. What do I mean by "material culture"? Thanks for asking. One former UD prof defines it this way: "Material culture is the history and philosophy of objects and the myriad relationships between people and things." (Follow this link for the source of that quotation, and for more information on UD's Center for Material Culture Studies.)


One way to better understand what material culture studies does is to think about a material culture approach in contradistinction to close reading. With extreme close reading, we ignore context and study the words as if they existed in a vacuum. With material culture studies, we consider how cultural context influences textual expression. Close reading and material culture studies are not mutually exclusive--in fact, they work very well together. (Perhaps we could further discuss how they work well together in the comments below.)


In this week's prologue, I look at Utopia through a material culture lens and call your attention to its ecology. Speaking of ecology, this video is recycled. I filmed it for a previous version of this course last spring:

What do you think about plants, animals, and material culture in Utopia? Go to the comments section below and weigh in.

Reading Assignment: Thomas More, Utopia

-On your 1st pass, read the Norton Intro to More and all of Utopia (518-89)
-On your 2nd pass start on p. 543, where Raphael begins talking about Utopia (so you’ll skip most of Book 1)

Wildcard Assignment: 

-I like the conversations we're having as a class. Let's focus on keeping the ideas flowing: 

• Post 1 additional comment on someone else's Rumination this week (so you'll comment on a total of 3 Ruminations this week), *or*
• Post 1 comment on this Prologue (in the comments section below)