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The Construction of Value in the Ancient World

by eric — last modified October 19, 2009 04:53 PM

A Cotsen Advanced Seminar

What Cotsen Advanced Seminar
When November 13, 2009 08:30 AM to
November 15, 2009 01:00 PM
Where Royce Hall 314 and Kerckhoff Grand Salon
Contact Name Sara Tobin
Contact Email
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The Construction of Value in the Ancient World

 

Cotsen Advanced Seminar

Organized by John Papadopoulos (UCLA) and Gary Urton (Harvard)

November 13-15, 2009 at UCLA

 

The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology is proud to sponsor the Advanced Seminar on The
Construction of Value in the Ancient World. This symposium seeks to bring together an
interdisciplinary and cross-cultural group of scholars in the Humanities and Social
Sciences (anthropologists, archaeologists, art historians, economic historians, historians,
linguists, philologists, sociologists) to investigate the meaning and construction of value
in the ancient world. The concept of value lies at the intersection of individual and
collective tastes, desires, sentiments, and attitudes that inform the ways people select, or
give priority to, one thing over another. How did past societies, and how do we in the
present, place value on anything? What, for example, is it that we value in particular
places or monuments, objects, materials, human bodies, or in art? To what extent are
taste, trade, and desire regulated by social and political mechanisms, however complex or
specific? 

For more information, please visit this event's Web page:

More information about this event…

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The Construction of Value

Scholars from Aristotle to Marx and beyond have been fascinated by the question of what constitutes value. The Construction of Value in the Ancient World makes a significant contribution to this ongoing inquiry, bringing together in one comprehensive volume the perspectives of leading anthropologists, archaeologists, historians, linguists, philologists, and sociologists on how value was created, defined, and expressed in a number of ancient societies around the world. Based on the basic premise that value is a social construct defined by the cultural context in which it is situated, the volume explores four overarching but closely interrelated themes: place value, body value, object value, and number value. The questions raised and addressed are of central importance to archaeologists studying ancient civilizations: How can we understand the value that might have been accorded to materials, objects, people, places, and patterns of action by those who produced or used the things that compose the human material record? Taken as a whole, the contributions to this volume demonstrate how the concept of value lies at the intersection of individual and collective tastes, desires, sentiments, and attitudes that inform the ways people select, or give priority to, one thing over another.

Available now!

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