ABSTRACT
This epilogue begins with examples of artefacts that Semper uses to illustrate his theoretical ideas in an 1853 lecture. It evaluates the role that these artefacts play as object lessons and as mediating agents, representing both analytical and experiential registers of engagement with material culture. Artefacts are endowed with this capacity because of their integral place in relation to the bodies and subjectivities of people assigned to them by the thinkers of the 19th century, including Gottfried Semper, Karl Marx, and others. The same assumptions about the proximity between things and people informed identifications of artefacts as nationally and racially belonging during this period. The contrast between the importance of material things, and the constant risk of dispossession faced by many stimulated Semper and others to think about why and how matter continued to matter in ways other than financial. On this basis, this epilogue outlines a case for continuing relevance of the analysis presented in this book for the broader fields of cultural history and material culture studies.
