The modern world around us is more mysterious than we think. This book looks beneath the surface of modern material culture to ask how the very stuff of our world has shaped our societies, and how and why it is that we have made the material culture that surrounds us."Matter, Materiality and Modern Culture" offers a new approach to the study of contemporary objects, from academics prominent in disciplines ranging from archaeology to philosophy and psychology. All have diverse perspectives on what material culture is, but all are equally concerned with how the very material nature of artefacts comes to form human life.

Introduction; PAUL GRAVES-BROWN; Background; Embodiment; Mutuality; Functionality and power; Indigenous theory and illusion; 1 The Berlin key or how to do words with things, BRUNO LATOUR; 2 The functions of things: a philosophical perspective on material culture, BETH PRESTON; Introduction; Two philosophical conceptions of function; Function in material culture; Implications for archaeology; Conclusion; 3 Making culture and weaving the world, TIM INGOLD; Artefacts and organisms; Making and growing; On encountering a basket; Surface, force and the generation of form; Spirals in nature and art; The limits of design; On the growth of artefacts; Baskets and textiles; Making as a way of weaving; Weaving by birds and humans; Conclusion; 4 Indigenous theories, scientific theories and product histories, MICHAEL BRIAN SCHIFFER; Introduction; Indigenous theories and the demise of the early electric car; Indigenous theory: the dark side; Behavioural theories and scientific product histories; Discussion and conclusion; 5 Taking things more seriously: psychological theories of autism and the material-social divide, EMMA WILLIAMS AND ALAN COSTALL; The social context of object use; How children with autism relate to objects; Current theoretical models of autism and the material-social divide; The material-social divide; 'Socialising' affordances; Conclusion; 6 Pomp and circumstance: archaeology, modernity and the corporatisation of death: early social and political Victorian attitudes towards burial practice, GEORGE NASH; Introduction: the growth of secularised society; Good mourning: respectability of death; Time for change; Health and social security; Ascending Highgate Hill; Termination at the London Necropolis Company Terminus; To summarise; 7 Never mind the relevance? popular culture for archaeologists, A.J. SCHOFIELD; Snapshots; Introducing popular culture; Heritage and anti-heritage: definitions, contradictions; Exploring youth culture: 1962-75; Conclusion; 8 Always crashing in the same car, PAUL GRAVES-BROWN; Habitat or skin?; The secret life of things; Symbolic wounds; Pornography; Risk and control; In conclusion: who, or what, is to blame?; Index;