1991 No. 1 CONTENTS - Institute of Social and Cultural ...

282 Book Reviews
on the tendency for anthropologists and the public to exaggerate the erotic and
fertility aspects of oon-Westem art, as well as the inftatioo m symbolic inlerpretation
to subsume oon-symbolic native statements, are worthy of much deeper
consideration and study. Like so much else in this work, Jbese are interesting and
inlriguing observations, but overall one is left disappointed that they are never
sufficiently developed.
My disappointment with the book: may be the result of having unduly bigh
expectations of perhaps wbat was only meao1 to be a modest introduction to the
problems of this fledgling sub-discipline. If this was the author's and publisber's
intentions then the work must be tteated more generously and credit awarded for
some of the provocations it raises. Primitive Art in Civilized P/o,ces could almost
be an overture for a much more exhaustive and autluitative work that still awaits
to be written.
ANTHONY SHELTON
SUSAN M. PBARcs (ed.), Museum Studies in Materitll Culture, London and New
York:: Leicester University Press 1989. xiii, 177 pp., Index, Figures. £17.50.
In bis preface to this collection of papers (wbich came out of the 1987 conference
'Museum Studies and Material Culture' held to mark the 21st anniversary of the
Department cl Museum Studies at Leicester University), Oeoffrey Lewis suggests
that the book addresses 'issues of critical concern to museology and therefore to
all those involved in museums today'. Sootehow its title belies such a broad
sweeping significance; some of its content, thankfully, does oot.
Material culture studies, and the development thereof, are certainly an issue of
importance to museum curators, but such studies must be seen as part of the
broader context of all museum work. Refreshingly, some of the authors
(Jen1dnson, Hooper-Greenbill, Kavanagh) take such a view as they address material
culture as a vehicle f