MATERIAL CULTURE: THE SOCIAL LIFE OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS1
MATERIAL CULTURE: THE SOCIAL LIFE OF EXTERNAL OBJECTS1
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物质文化：外部物体的社会生活1
DOI：
10.1111/j.1752-0118.1998.tb00409.x
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发表时间：
1998
影响因子：
0.6
通讯作者：
D. Miller
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
D. Miller
我们被告知，在六天内，上帝创造了天地和其中的所有生物，给他们的形象和他们的应得的。而不是几天后，另一组生物被创建，我们可以称之为学科。这些生物在进一步的观察中看起来就像自然界中的任何生物一样奇怪，它们的灵感看起来也不那么神圣。为什么我们学习和教授的东西被分成我们所期望的类别？在我的大学（伦敦大学学院）有一门学科叫地理学，在那里，研究岩层的人被期望与研究城市种族的人一起喝咖啡。语言学的整个学科都被用来研究语言，另一个被称为心理学的学科似乎将情感崩溃的专业知识与那些花时间把老鼠送上断头台的人混合在一起;而工程学则将建造桥梁与建造生物技术联合收割机起来。我不知道现代学科的创立有什么伟大的神话（尽管有古典的先例），但有时我会想象某个创造的时刻，我把它看作是一个吉卜林式的故事。在其中，我看到一位瘦弱的年轻女子代表了文物世界--我们所说的物质文化。不知什么原因，她似乎在这个重要的聚会上迟到了。到达后，她发现所有其他可能的调查领域已经离开了他们珍贵的新学科，他们可以创造自己的身份，但是，最后，她惊恐地发现，所有可用的学科都已经给了，什么都没有留给她。
In six days we are told God made the heavens and the earth and all the creatures therein, giving them their forms and their due. Rather more than a few days later, another set of creatures was created which we may call the academic disciplines. These creatures on further inspection look just as bizarre as any of those in the natural world, and their inspiration looks something rather less than divine. Why are the things we learn and teach divided up into the categories we have come to expect? In my university (University College London) there is a discipline called geography where people who study rock formations are expected to have coffee with people who study urban ethnicity. An entire discipline of linguistics was given over to the study of language, another called psychology seems to mix and match expertise on emotional breakdowns with those who spend their time guillotining rats; while engineering has come to combine building bridges with building biotechnology. I know of no grand myths for the creation of the modern disciplines (though there are classical precedents), but sometimes I imagine some moment of creation which I take to be reminiscent of a Kiplingesque just-so story. In it I see a thin young woman representing the world of artifacts-what we call material culture. For some mythical reason she seems to be arriving rather late at the crucial gathering. Upon arrival she discovers that all the other areas of possible enquiry are already leaving with their prized new disciplines from which they could create their identity, but, coming last, she finds to her horror that all the available disciplines have been given out and that nothing is left to her.