Bridging History: Unit Four
"Everyday Life"
6th January through 13th February
| scoring_sheet_4.pdf |
Theme 1: Cosmology & Belief
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In all cultures, people strive to understand their reason for being and their place in the universe. Art can be an instrument for not only recording spiritual beliefs, but also for creating myths, defining the realms of mortal and immortal, communing with ancestors, channeling forces of good, and repelling those of evil.
Watch the video here, you'll find the transcript on the same page. | ||
Find the COMPARISONS here.
Theme 2: the Family & Household
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What does the study of families and households tell us about our global past? In this theme examining West Asia, Europe, and China, families and households become the focus of historians, providing a window into the private experiences in world societies, and how they sometimes become a model for ordering the outside world.
Watch the video here.
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Useful Confucian Views video segment overview.
Useful Islamic Views video segment overview. Useful European Views video segment overview.
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Theme 3: Domestic Life
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From furniture and tapestries to bowls and baskets, art has figured prominently in domestic life for thousands of years. Within the space of the home—be it a palace or a hut—aesthetically and culturally significant objects have fulfilled purposes both mundane (e.g., storage and service) and transcendent (e.g., the facilitation of prayer). Moreover, the activities and events taking place within these domestic spaces have been the inspiration for countless artists. Their depictions of everyday life are best understood as complex documents melding real-world observations with ideal social expectations.
Watch the video here, you'll find the transcript on the same page. | ||
Find the COMPARISONS here.
Theme 4: The Urban Experience
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For thousands of years cities have been hubs of activity, centers of industry, and places from which new aesthetic trends originate, evolve, and spread. The creative visions of planners, painters, architects, and sculptors have shaped the development of cities around the world. In turn, the urban experience has inspired the creation of artwork depicting aspects of city life.
Watch the video here, you'll find the transcript on the same page. | ||
Find the COMPARISONS here.
Theme 5: Land & Labor Relationships
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What factors shape the ways in which the basic resources are exploited by a society? From Southeast Asia to Russia to Africa and the Americas, the ratios between land availability and the usable labor force were the primary basis of pre-industrial economies, but politics, environment, and culture played a part as well.
Watch the video here.
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Useful Slavery & Serfdom video segment overview.
Useful Islamic SE Asia video segment overview. Useful Slavery in the Americas video segment overview.
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Theme 6: Food, Demographics & Culture
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What role has food played in human societies? Studying the production and consumption of food allows historians to uncover hidden levels of meaning in social relationships, understand demographic shifts, and trace cultural exchange. This theme examines the earliest impact of globalization including changing cuisine, environmental impact, and the rise of forced labor as a global economic force.
Watch the video here.
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Useful Atlantic Voyages video segment overview.
Useful Caribbean Experience video segment overview. Useful Changing Diets in China video segment overview.
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Theme 7: Ceremony & Societies
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People across the world engage in a wide range of ceremonial rites and spectacles. Some of these are religious, others political or social. Through these practices and the arts that accompany them—costumes, masks, vessels, ancestor figurines, altarpieces, staffs, and other objects and images—people across cultures define identity, build community, express belief, negotiate power, and attend to the physical and spiritual well-being of both individuals and societies.
Watch the video here, you'll find the transcript on the same page. | ||
| video_transcript_for_ceremony_and_society.pdf |
Find the COMPARISONS here.