|
Reviews |
|
|
The Socialness of Things: Essays on the
Socio-semiotics of Objects |
“With the publication of The Socialness of Things, the socio-semiotics of objects has taken another major step forward. The editor, who was also the organizer of the 1990 conference at the University of Toronto where the papers in this volume were first presented, is to be congratulated – along with his contributors – for having pushed the study of material culture and sociology-anthropology of consumption in some radically new and productive directions.
Riggins’ own contribution, ‘Fieldwork in the Living Room: An
Autoethnographic Essay’ is exemplary for its methodological rigour. In it, he
proposes a series of analytical categories for eliciting the significances of
the features of a room, both through observation of its contents and through
conversation with its inhabitants. The result is a wonderfully ‘thick
description’ of the interior decor of a lower middle-class home, which
includes a record of some of the conflicts between the author and his mother
over the purchase, placement and significance of certain objects.”
David Howes, Concordia University, The Semiotic Review of Books, January 1997.
“The publication of this anthology by the prestigious European scholarly publishing house Mouton de Gruyter testifies to the quality of the papers. The studies in this volume provide insights into the human-object relationship by referring to manifestations of material culture cross-culturally. This anthology, which adds significantly to our knowledge of material culture, belongs in all major research libraries.
Appropriately dedicated to Paul Bouissac, the well-known University of
Toronto semiotician, this volume acknowledges his recognition of ‘the
theoretical potential of the socialness of things.’”
Frank Nuessel, University of Louisville, Canadian Journal of Sociology, Spring 1997.