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What is technology? How and why did techniques - including materials, tools, processes and products - become central subjects of study in anthropology and archaeology? In this book, Nathan Schlanger explores the invention of technology through the work of the eminent ethnologist and prehistorian André Leroi-Gourhan (1911-1986), author of groundbreaking works such as Gesture and Speech. While employed at the Musée de l'Homme in Paris, Leroi-Gourhan initially specialized in ethnographic studies of 'material civilizations'. By the 1950s, however, his approach broadened to encompass evolutionary and behavioral perspectives from history, biology, psychology and philosophy. Focused on the material dimensions of techniques, Leroi-Gourhan's influential investigations ranged from traditional craft activities to automated production. They also anticipated both the information age and the environmental crisis of today. Schlanger's study offers new insights into the complexity of Leroi-Gourhan's interdisciplinary research, methods, and results, spanning across the 20th century social sciences and humanities.
List of contents
1. In(ter)disciplinary preliminaries. Around and about Leroi-Gourhan; 2. Technology in the making 1. Tendencies and traditions with Mauss and Rivet (1936-1946); 3. Technology in the making 2. Documentary imperatives and Bergsonian intuitions (1940-1949); 4. (Mis)adventures with Homo faber (1941-1950); 5. Prehistory regained: continuities, accumulations, recapitulations (1944-1962); 6. Psychological connections and biological foundations. From technical behaviour to the evolution of technicity (1950-1965); 7. Technological redemptions: machines, artisans and the re-humanization of Homo faber; Bibliography; List of figures; Indices.
About the author
Nathan Schlanger is Professor of Archaeology at the École Nationale des chartes, Paris. He has published on a range of topics in prehistory, technology and material culture studies, the history of the humanities and social sciences, and international heritage management.
