With all usual wikicaveats:
Thing theory from Wikipedia:
Thing theory is a branch of critical theory that focuses on the role of
things in literature and culture. It borrows from Heidegger's
distinction between objects and things, whereby an object becomes a
thing when it is somehow made to stand out against the backdrop of the
world it exists in. Thing theorists look at the role of things within
literature - at the fixation on particular objects. The theory was
largely created by Bill Brown, who edited a special issue of Critical
Inquiry [http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/CI/] on it in 2001.
Thing theory is particularly well suited to modernism, due to the
dictates of modernist poets such as William Carlos Williams, who
declared that there should be "No ideas but in things" or T.S. Eliot's
idea of the objective correlative.
[end entry]
-Yvonne
GRAVES-BROWN C.A. wrote:
> According to my other half 'Thing Theory' comes from the introductory chapter from a Book by Bill Brown. 'Things' 2004, The University of Chacago Press.
>
> Best wishes
>
> Carolyn
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Archaeological theory and associated fields of interest list on behalf of Nicholas Gessler
> Sent: Sun 04/11/2007 16:11
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: Thing Theory
>
>
>
> Kool name, "thing theory."
> But I too would like to know, "what is it?"
>
> For that matter, has anyone articulated a comprehensive theory
> of material culture? Harris and Binford were on the right track,
> but what is "new and improved" along those lines?
>
> Cheers, Nick
> [log in to unmask]
> UCLA Human Complex Systems Program
>
> At 03:47 AM 11/4/2007, Brigalex wrote:
>> Would anyone care to enlighten me on "thing theory" please?
>>
>> Lynn Alexander-Briggs
>>
>>
>>> From: Christopher Witmore <[log in to unmask]>
>>> Reply-To: Archaeological theory and associated fields of interest list
>>> <[log in to unmask]>
>>> To: [log in to unmask]
>>> Subject: Deadline extension for session proposals to Archaeological
>>> Theory at WAC
>>> Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2007 10:37:30 -0400
>> Snip>
>> While branding 'labels' proliferate, and are often
>>> taken for developed theories, the inter-relationships between various
>>> agendas are seldom interrogated; e.g. agency theory, cognitive archaeology,
>>> embodiment, evolutionary archaeology, feminism, materiality, middle range
>>> theory, phenomenology, thing theory, etc.
>>
>>> --
>>> Christopher Witmore PhD
>>> Postdoctoral Research Associate
>>> Joukowsky Institute for Archaeology and the Ancient World
>>> Brown University
>>> http://proteus.brown.edu/witmore/Home
>> _________________________________________________________________
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