Lives of bronze gods and wooden puppets : The material culture of humanoids in Seventeenth Century Sweden
Herva, Vesa-Pekka and Monié Nordin, Jonas LU
(2025)
In The Seventeenth Century
40(4).
p.593-620
- Abstract
- Living statues and artificial humans have a long cultural history. They are awe-inspiring because they are entangled with existentialist questions about reality, especially as regards the uncertainty of being. This article explores how humanoid material culture in its different forms was involved in the interaction between myriad human and non-human entities in seventeenth-century Sweden and in the broader context of the emerging global world. We discuss sculptures and automata that represent humans (or divinities or virtues in a human form) that populated and operated in different socio-cultural spaces in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century world that was looking into an ancient (classical) past on the one hand and... (More)
- Living statues and artificial humans have a long cultural history. They are awe-inspiring because they are entangled with existentialist questions about reality, especially as regards the uncertainty of being. This article explores how humanoid material culture in its different forms was involved in the interaction between myriad human and non-human entities in seventeenth-century Sweden and in the broader context of the emerging global world. We discuss sculptures and automata that represent humans (or divinities or virtues in a human form) that populated and operated in different socio-cultural spaces in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century world that was looking into an ancient (classical) past on the one hand and discovering new worlds – geographically and metaphysically – on the other. Humanoid material culture affords perspectives on various seemingly contradictory, ambiguous, and uncertain ideas and processes of changing relationships between the past and present, us-ness and otherness, and humans and non-humans in the early modern period. (Less)
- Abstract (Swedish)
- Living statues and artificial humans have a long cultural history.
They are awe-inspiring because they are entangled with existentialist questions about reality, especially as regards the uncertainty of
being. This article explores how humanoid material culture in its
different forms was involved in the interaction between myriad
human and non-human entities in seventeenth-century Sweden
and in the broader context of the emerging global world. We
discuss sculptures and automata that represent humans (or divinities or virtues in a human form) that populated and operated in
different socio-cultural spaces in the late seventeenth- and early
eighteenth-century world that was looking into an ancient... (More) - Living statues and artificial humans have a long cultural history.
They are awe-inspiring because they are entangled with existentialist questions about reality, especially as regards the uncertainty of
being. This article explores how humanoid material culture in its
different forms was involved in the interaction between myriad
human and non-human entities in seventeenth-century Sweden
and in the broader context of the emerging global world. We
discuss sculptures and automata that represent humans (or divinities or virtues in a human form) that populated and operated in
different socio-cultural spaces in the late seventeenth- and early
eighteenth-century world that was looking into an ancient (classical) past on the one hand and discovering new worlds – geographically and metaphysically – on the other. Humanoid material
culture affords perspectives on various seemingly contradictory,
ambiguous, and uncertain ideas and processes of changing relationships between the past and present, us-ness and otherness, and
humans and non-humans in the early modern period. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/86e0fba4-4ec3-4072-89a4-e60495099391
- author
- Herva, Vesa-Pekka
and Monié Nordin, Jonas
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2025-05-30
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- Statues, automatas, humanoids, early modern Sweden, Sámi, War-booty
- in
- The Seventeenth Century
- volume
- 40
- issue
- 4
- pages
- 28 pages
- publisher
- Taylor & Francis
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:105006897156
- ISSN
- 0268-117X
- DOI
- 10.1080/0268117X.2025.2507211
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- 86e0fba4-4ec3-4072-89a4-e60495099391
- date added to LUP
- 2025-09-01 21:02:14
- date last changed
- 2025-09-10 11:14:38
@article{86e0fba4-4ec3-4072-89a4-e60495099391,
abstract = {{Living statues and artificial humans have a long cultural history. They are awe-inspiring because they are entangled with existentialist questions about reality, especially as regards the uncertainty of being. This article explores how humanoid material culture in its different forms was involved in the interaction between myriad human and non-human entities in seventeenth-century Sweden and in the broader context of the emerging global world. We discuss sculptures and automata that represent humans (or divinities or virtues in a human form) that populated and operated in different socio-cultural spaces in the late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century world that was looking into an ancient (classical) past on the one hand and discovering new worlds – geographically and metaphysically – on the other. Humanoid material culture affords perspectives on various seemingly contradictory, ambiguous, and uncertain ideas and processes of changing relationships between the past and present, us-ness and otherness, and humans and non-humans in the early modern period.}},
author = {{Herva, Vesa-Pekka and Monié Nordin, Jonas}},
issn = {{0268-117X}},
keywords = {{Statues; automatas; humanoids; early modern Sweden; Sámi; War-booty}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{05}},
number = {{4}},
pages = {{593--620}},
publisher = {{Taylor & Francis}},
series = {{The Seventeenth Century}},
title = {{Lives of bronze gods and wooden puppets : The material culture of humanoids in Seventeenth Century Sweden}},
url = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0268117X.2025.2507211}},
doi = {{10.1080/0268117X.2025.2507211}},
volume = {{40}},
year = {{2025}},
}