Danielle Vander Horst (MA '19), History of Art Undergraduate/Graduate Co-ordintor, has recently been published in the Archaeological Institute of America's annual peer-reviewed book series, Selected Papers on Ancient Art and Architecture. Volume 8 of the series is titled, Of Things and Stories: Current Approaches to Object Biography, Medium, and Materiality (2024, edited by Christina Marini and Lita Tzortzopoulou-Gregory).
"From the gold of the shaft graves of Mycenae to an undecorated Late Roman lekythos, and from facade statuary in Roman Ephesus to electroplated teapots in present-day household assemblages on the island of Kythera, this volume presents a selection of essays on the complex and ever-progressing relationships between things and people across time and space. Past and present advances in the discourse on materialisms are approached from a case study perspective through the lens of two different but complementary themes: object biography and materiality in relation to medium. Each essay offers a distinct insight into the always shifting meanings, values, and relational connections of things, exploring a diversity of concepts, contexts, and material elements from prehistory to today."
Vander Horst's chapter, "Containing Yourself: Romano-British Face Pots as Proxy for Body and Self" is a continuation of the work she conducted for her MA in Archaeology at the Cornell Institute for Archaeology and Material Studies.
"This paper seeks to offer a new approach to Romano-British face pots wherein these vessels can be understood as active agents in socio-cultural contexts related to votive and funerary practices...The result of this discussion is that face pots in Britain may be seen as productive outlets for pre-Roman ideologies concerning what the body is and how it can look and how, as proxies for human agents, they can act as agents in their own right."
Full publication details can be found here and on the AIA website.
