Extra-ordinary: unique and common artifacts as social actors
Editors: Prof. Leore Grosman (Institute of Archaeology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Prof. Gideon Shelach-Lavi (Department of Asian Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem), Prof. Nir Avieli (Department of Sociology & Anthropology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev), and Prof. Rina Talgam (Art History Department, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
This collection explores the dichotomy between the extraordinary and the mundane. Researchers in fields such as history, archaeology, anthropology, art history, and more, often waver between an attraction to the extraordinary, which is frequently associated with human creativity and higher-level meanings, and the common artifacts and activities that can be perceived as representative of “real” everyday life and social experience. It is sometimes a matter of personal taste that determines the focus of research: scholars who are inclined towards rich interpretive analysis are drawn to extraordinary events or artifacts, while those more attracted to systematic and statistical analysis focus on ordinary materials and the conditions of everyday life. The papers in this collection focus on one artifact/phenomenon as a starting point to address issues related to the extraordinary and its use as an analytic category.
All papers submitted to Collections are subject to the journal’s standard editorial criteria and policies. This includes the journal’s policy on competing interests.
