Material Identities examines the way that individuals use material objects as tools for projecting aspects of their identities.

• Considers the way identity is fashioned, launched, used, and admired in the material world.
• Contributors intervene from the disciplines of art history, anthropology, design and material culture.
• Considers contrasting media - painting, print, sculpture, dress, coinage, architecture, furniture, luxury items, and interior design.
• Explores the complexity of identity through the intersection notions of gender, ethnicity, age, sexuality, and class.
• Reaffirms the central role of public identities and their impact on social life.

Joanna Sofaer is a Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of Southampton. She is the author of The Body as Material Culture: A Theoretical Osteoarchaeology (2006), editor of Children and Material Culture (2000) and co-editor, with Dana Arnold, of Biographies and Space (2007).