Nicholas Thomas
University of Cambridge, Museum of Archaeology & Anthropology, Department Member
- Nicholas Thomas first visited the Pacific in 1984 to research his PhD thesis on culture and history in the Marquesas ... moreNicholas Thomas first visited the Pacific in 1984 to research his PhD thesis on culture and history in the Marquesas Islands. He has since worked on material culture, exploration, empire and art in Oceania; and written more generally on colonial culture, exchange, travel and museology. He is co-author or co-editor with Pacific Islander colleagues and artists of eight books including Art in Oceania (Thames and Hudson, 2012) and many others include Entangled Objects (1991), which influential advocated a return to material culture. Others include Oceanic Art (1995), Discoveries: the voyages of Captain Cook (2003) and Islanders: the Pacific in the Age of Empire (2010), which was awarded the Wolfson History Prize. Since 2006, he has been Director of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology in Cambridge. With Peter Brunt he co-curated 'Oceania', a landmark exhibition at the Royal Academy in London and the Musée de quai Branly in Paris over 2018-19.edit
The arts of Oceania are astonishing: great statues, daunting tattoos, dynamic carving, dazzling woven and painted fabrics, intricately carved weapons, and a bewildering variety of ornaments, ritual objects, and utilitarian but beautiful... more
The arts of Oceania are astonishing: great statues, daunting tattoos, dynamic carving, dazzling woven and painted fabrics, intricately carved weapons, and a bewildering variety of ornaments, ritual objects, and utilitarian but beautiful things. This landmark book breaks new ground by setting the art of Oceania in its full historical context and capturing an up-to-date understanding of the field. From archaeological findings of prehistoric art to the impact of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial historical processes, it explores influences such as migration, trade, missionaries, pacification, tourism, nationalism and contemporary market factors, offering abundant new interpretations and addressing significant gaps in other publications. Factors that have been largely neglected until now, including the role of museums, the significance of colonial photography, indigenous modernisms and contemporary Pacific art, are covered alongside the familiar canon. This beautifully illustrate...
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Research Interests: Aesthetics, Rhetoric, Art, Polynesia, Music and identity, and 3 moreIdentity, Exhibition, and Exhibitionism
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Research Interests: History, Archaeology, Art, Polynesia, Provenance, and 6 moreSculpture, Antiquity, Dating, Carving, Isotope analysis, and Wooden Sculpture
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ANTARCTICA 150 Bougainville I755 - 1769 Cook in the Endeavour I768 - l77l Cook in ihe Resolution I772 - I775 Fumeaux in the Adventure 1772 -I774 1 AU ... Observations Made during a Voyage round the World This One AT4R-NDK-JK7E ...... more
ANTARCTICA 150 Bougainville I755 - 1769 Cook in the Endeavour I768 - l77l Cook in ihe Resolution I772 - I775 Fumeaux in the Adventure 1772 -I774 1 AU ... Observations Made during a Voyage round the World This One AT4R-NDK-JK7E ... Frontispiece. Portrait medallion of Johann ...
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Page 1. Partial Texts Representation, Colonialism and Agency in Pacific History* NICHOLAS THOMAS . . . historians often follow closely on the heels of events... But, at a deeper level, they tend to be intellectual laggards, influenced ...
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The history of general histories of the Pacific Islands is a history in itself. First there was famine and now a feast. There is no sharp date of demarcation when scarcity turned to abundance. The publication of Kerry Howe’s Where the... more
The history of general histories of the Pacific Islands is a history in itself. First there was famine and now a feast. There is no sharp date of demarcation when scarcity turned to abundance. The publication of Kerry Howe’s Where the Waves Fall (1984) might constitute a turning point, which was reinforced by Deryck Scarr’s Kingdoms of the Reefs and Ian Campbell’s A History of the Pacific Islands (both in 1990). These, in turn, were followed by other sweeping treatments, the most recent being Islanders. It would be fair to say that Nicholas Thomas’s Islanders has received more notice and acclaim than any of its predecessors, having shared the prestigious Wolfson History Prize in 2010. It has also been widely and enthusiastically reviewed, and in outlets not normally concerned with the Pacific Islands. On behalf of The Journal of Pacific History I therefore welcome this forum and thank the reviewers for contributing their reflections. I am equally grateful to Nicholas Thomas for his considered and gracious response in the face of some tough questions.
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Historical metaphors and mythical realities.- structure in the early history of the Sandwich Islands kingdom, by M. Sahlins. Pp. viii + 84. Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania, Special Publication 1. Ann Arbor: University of... more
Historical metaphors and mythical realities.- structure in the early history of the Sandwich Islands kingdom, by M. Sahlins. Pp. viii + 84. Association for Social Anthropology in Oceania, Special Publication 1. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. 1981.
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This speculative comment considers the potential worth of raising questions that appear simple but may be rewardingly complex. It asks whether routine aspects of curatorial work, such as captioning objects and juxtaposing them in... more
This speculative comment considers the potential worth of raising questions that appear simple but may be rewardingly complex. It asks whether routine aspects of curatorial work, such as captioning objects and juxtaposing them in displays, may not have more suggestive dimensions than has been recognized previously. It asks what the implications of a conception of “the museum as method” might have for current approaches to public exhibition.
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ResumeCet article traite de la circulation de l’art indigene a la fin du XIXe et au debut du XXe siecles, et les effets de ces voyages dans les mondes indigenes et europeens d’aujourd’hui. Tene Waitere (vers 1854-1931) est tres... more
ResumeCet article traite de la circulation de l’art indigene a la fin du XIXe et au debut du XXe siecles, et les effets de ces voyages dans les mondes indigenes et europeens d’aujourd’hui. Tene Waitere (vers 1854-1931) est tres generalement considere comme le plus important sculpteur maori de la periode coloniale. En plus de sculptures importantes faites pour ses proches parents et pour d’autres Maoris, il a produit des œuvres pour les touristes, les ethnologues et les musees coloniaux, notamment la grande maison sculptee « Rauru », qui se trouve au Museum fur Volkerkunde de Hambourg. S’appuyant sur les ecrits de Marc Auge, Pierre Nora et W. G. Sebald, et aussi sur le travail du photographe neo-zelandais Mark Adams, cet essai se penche sur les significations passees et presentes des œuvres de Waitere dans leurs cadres europeens.
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An opinion piece related to the debate about ICOM's proposed new museum definition
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It is enormously encouraging that the President of France has chosen to highlight the question of the return of African works to their countries of origin... (from The Art Newspaper)
Research Interests: Cultural Studies, African Studies, Museum Studies, Cultural Heritage, Heritage Studies, and 8 moreSocial and Cultural Anthropology, African Diaspora Studies, Curatorial Practice (Art), Museology, Cultural Repatriation, African Art, Protection of Cultural Heritage from Illicit Trafficking, Repatriation of Antiquities, and Repatriation
A response to Lisa Reihana's magnificent Emissaries, at the 2017 Venice Biennale
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A unique wooden sculpture collected by James Cook during his first voyage to the Pacific is widely considered to be a masterpiece of Oceanic art, but its exact provenance has been unclear. New analysis of shavings from the object now... more
A unique wooden sculpture collected by James Cook during his first voyage to the Pacific is widely considered to be a masterpiece of Oceanic art, but its exact provenance has been unclear. New analysis of shavings from the object now indicate that a) the tree from which it was carved was felled between 1690 and 1728, and that the carving was therefore up to 80 years old when obtained, and b) it originated in Tahiti, despite its stylistic affinities with art from the Austral Islands. Motifs and forms clearly travelled within regions, and populations interacted in ways that blur presumed tribal boundaries. It is perhaps time to reconsider the association between region and style upon which the cataloguing and identification of objects routinely depends.
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Welcome to participants in the conference, The Pasts and Presence of Art in South Africa, & launch of Carolyn Hamilton and Nessa Leibhammer's Tribing and Untribing the archive (2016)
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A comment on the state of play in university museums, from the Times Higher Education (THE)
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Entitled 'Global reach' in the print version of the journal, this essay reflected on the state of play in British and European ethnographic museums, concluding with the claim that if conceived ambitiously rather than apologetically, the... more
Entitled 'Global reach' in the print version of the journal, this essay reflected on the state of play in British and European ethnographic museums, concluding with the claim that if conceived ambitiously rather than apologetically, the institutions have more to offer than ever before.
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... London: Routledge. Clifford, James 1988 The Predicament of Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, eds. 1986 Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley:... more
... London: Routledge. Clifford, James 1988 The Predicament of Culture. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press. Clifford, James, and George E. Marcus, eds. 1986 Writing Culture: The Poetics and Politics of Ethnography. Berkeley: University of California Press. ...
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Page 1. Sanitation and Seeing: The Creation of State Power in Early Colonial Fiji NICHOLAS THOMAS King's College, Cambridge ... 18?S I C Page 3. CREATION OF STATE POWER IN FIJI 151 Custom of Fiji is to live in villages" the... more
Page 1. Sanitation and Seeing: The Creation of State Power in Early Colonial Fiji NICHOLAS THOMAS King's College, Cambridge ... 18?S I C Page 3. CREATION OF STATE POWER IN FIJI 151 Custom of Fiji is to live in villages" the family of a man called Waivure may ...
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... I Prince Street Alexandria, Va USA vpA Page 10. THE INDUSTRIAL MAGAZINE THIS IS TOO EASY! C. The only tools needed to lengthen or shorten a Clouser Link Chain are your two hands and a happy smile. Simplicity is the keynote of the... more
... I Prince Street Alexandria, Va USA vpA Page 10. THE INDUSTRIAL MAGAZINE THIS IS TOO EASY! C. The only tools needed to lengthen or shorten a Clouser Link Chain are your two hands and a happy smile. Simplicity is the keynote of the Clouser principle. ...
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Current Anthropology Volume 30, Number 1, February 1989 © 1989 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. All rights reserved 0011-3204/89/зоог-оооз$2.25 The Force of Ethnology Origins and ...
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... Hierarchy, and History in Early Twentieth-Century Evangelical Propaganda NICHOLAS THOMAS The Australian National University Colonial discourse, sometimes referred to in the singular, seems unmanagea-bly vast and heterogeneous, for it... more
... Hierarchy, and History in Early Twentieth-Century Evangelical Propaganda NICHOLAS THOMAS The Australian National University Colonial discourse, sometimes referred to in the singular, seems unmanagea-bly vast and heterogeneous, for it must encompass not only the ...
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Developments in Polynesian Ethnology, edited by Alan Howard and Robert Borofsky. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1990. ix + 374 pp. £26.60. ISBN 0–8248–1181‐X. Melanesia and the Western Polynesian Fringe: Vol. III of Russia and the... more
Developments in Polynesian Ethnology, edited by Alan Howard and Robert Borofsky. University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu, 1990. ix + 374 pp. £26.60. ISBN 0–8248–1181‐X. Melanesia and the Western Polynesian Fringe: Vol. III of Russia and the South Pacific, 1696–1840, by Glynn Barratt. University of British Columbia Press, Vancouver, 1990. xvii+257 pp., 8 pp. plates, 12 maps. £34.15. ISBN 0–7748–0338‐X. Naga:
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ABSTRACT The literature on shamanism and related topics is extensive, but has in general been biased toward curing and trance; the political and historical significance of shamanic activities has been largely neglected. The contributors... more
ABSTRACT The literature on shamanism and related topics is extensive, but has in general been biased toward curing and trance; the political and historical significance of shamanic activities has been largely neglected. The contributors to Shamanism, History, and the State--distinguished anthropologists and historians from England, Australia, and France--show that shamanism is not static and stable, but always changing as a result of political dynamics and historical processes. Contributors are Tamsyn Barton, Sysan Bayly, Mary Beard, Maurice Bloch, Peter Gow, Roberte N. Hamayon, Stephen Hugh-Jones, Caroline Humphrey, and Nicholas Thomas. "The importance of this collection lies in the painstaking, many-sided ways in which it shows 'shamanism' to be a multifarious and continuously changing 'dialogue' or interaction with specific, local contexts. . . . Thus, rather than tackling the issue in principle, this collection tries to demonstrate through 'case studies' just how different 'shamanism' becomes if seen through a lens sensitive to history and the influence of institutions, such as the state, which seem far removed from it. I think the demonstrations add up to an impressive force." --Michael Taussig "This new, ably edited volume provides . . . chapters that are rich in historic detail and that provide insights into general cultural processes and social interactions." --Historian Nicholas Thomas is Queen Elizabeth II Research Fellow, Department of Prehistory and Anthropology, Australian National University, Canberra. He is the author of Out of Time: History and Evolution in Anthropological Discourse. Caroline Humphrey, author of Karl Marx Collective: Economy, Society and Religion in a Siberian Collective Farm, is Fellow of King's College and Lecturer in Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.
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... They say that the Tongan who first reported the custom to his countrymen, being anxious to state it correctly, repeated in a sing-song tone, as he went along, "Tattoo the women, but not the men; tattoo the women, but not... more
... They say that the Tongan who first reported the custom to his countrymen, being anxious to state it correctly, repeated in a sing-song tone, as he went along, "Tattoo the women, but not the men; tattoo the women, but not the men." By ill luck he struck his foot violently against a ...
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History and highlights of the collections of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge (co-edited with Mark Elliott) (second part)
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History and highlights of the collections of the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge (co-edited with Mark Elliott) - first part
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Uncorrected proof of catalogue of the 2014 exhibition at Two Temple Place, London and at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge;
multiple authors including the directors of the eight University of Cambridge museums
multiple authors including the directors of the eight University of Cambridge museums
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History of collections at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge
Von Hugel's collecting in Fiji
Contemporary art practice in the museum
The future of ethnographic museums
Von Hugel's collecting in Fiji
Contemporary art practice in the museum
The future of ethnographic museums
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Catalogue of an exhibition at the Ikon Gallery, Birmingham and at the Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, Cambridge (2013-14). Images of works from the MAA collection and short essays and responses
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Epilogue to Thomas et al (eds) Tattoo: Bodies, art and exchange in the Pacific and the West (Reaktion/Duke University Press, 2005)
See the full book for a range of historical and ethnographic case studies.
See the full book for a range of historical and ethnographic case studies.
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Discussion of the work of distinguished Polynesian artist John Pule (b 1962)
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Reflections on ethnographic collecting in Melanesia; the formation of museum collections; museum histories; exchange in the Pacific
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Reflections on the history of textiles and missionary encounters in Polynesia; artefact theory; material culture theory; colonial exchanges
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Catalogue of 2021 exhibition by this major contemporary artist
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The full catalogue of the landmark 2018/2019 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts (London) and Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac (Paris)
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Full catalogue of the landmark 2018/2019 exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts / Musée du quai Branly-Jacques Chirac
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Le lecteur qui se plongera dans ce livre ne verra plus le Pacifique, ni le monde, de la même manière. Le grand océan, hormis son imagerie de carte postale, se trouve aujourd'hui encore facilement remisé dans une terra incognita. Écrite... more
Le lecteur qui se plongera dans ce livre ne verra plus le Pacifique, ni le monde, de la même manière. Le grand océan, hormis son imagerie de carte postale, se trouve aujourd'hui encore facilement remisé dans une terra incognita. Écrite par les Occidentaux, l'histoire du Pacifique n'a jamais cherché à raconter autre chose que sa propre théodicée : celle de la conquête civilisatrice.
De même que le mythe étasunien de la « frontière » a longtemps éclipsé la place et le sort des Amérindiens, cette approche excluait toute part active des Insulaires dans ce qui s'est joué dans le Pacifique depuis les premières et funestes rencontres avec les Européens.
De même que le mythe étasunien de la « frontière » a longtemps éclipsé la place et le sort des Amérindiens, cette approche excluait toute part active des Insulaires dans ce qui s'est joué dans le Pacifique depuis les premières et funestes rencontres avec les Européens.
Research Interests: Anthropology, Historical Anthropology, Pacific Island Studies, Postcolonial Studies, History of Anthropology, and 12 moreColonialism, Polynesian Studies, Post-Colonialism, Global History, Oceania (Anthropology), Melanesia (Anthropology), History of the British Empire, Vanuatu, Exoticism, Nouvelle-Calédonie, Fiji Tradition, and Tahiti
Created across the six islands of a remote archipelago in eastern Polynesia, the art of the Marquesas is one of the world’s most distinctive and remarkable art traditions. Though exhibited in major museums around the world, Marquesan art... more
Created across the six islands of a remote archipelago in eastern Polynesia, the art of the Marquesas is one of the world’s most distinctive and remarkable art traditions. Though exhibited in major museums around the world, Marquesan art is nevertheless poorly understood, and the formation of collections still largely unresearched.
This book documents and explores the most extensive early collection from the archipelago. In May, 1804, participants in the first Russian voyage round the world, usually known as the Krusenstern expedition after the principal commander, spent twelve days at the island of Nuku Hiva. Inspired by the science and collecting associated with the voyages of Captain James Cook, the mariners interacted with Islanders, and made extensive collections of artefacts. While the lives of the collectors and exchanges among scientists led to these artefacts being widely dispersed, the research reported here has identified some 200 objects collected during the voyage which are now in museums in Russia, Estonia, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
The outcome of years of work in museum stores and archives, Tiki reassembles a collection of exceptional importance. A set of essays contextualise these precisely-provenanced artefacts historically, and in the life and environment of the Marquesas Islands. For the first time, this heritage is made accessible to Islanders themselves, and to interested scholars and curators.
This books is part of the Pacific Presences series.
This book documents and explores the most extensive early collection from the archipelago. In May, 1804, participants in the first Russian voyage round the world, usually known as the Krusenstern expedition after the principal commander, spent twelve days at the island of Nuku Hiva. Inspired by the science and collecting associated with the voyages of Captain James Cook, the mariners interacted with Islanders, and made extensive collections of artefacts. While the lives of the collectors and exchanges among scientists led to these artefacts being widely dispersed, the research reported here has identified some 200 objects collected during the voyage which are now in museums in Russia, Estonia, Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands.
The outcome of years of work in museum stores and archives, Tiki reassembles a collection of exceptional importance. A set of essays contextualise these precisely-provenanced artefacts historically, and in the life and environment of the Marquesas Islands. For the first time, this heritage is made accessible to Islanders themselves, and to interested scholars and curators.
This books is part of the Pacific Presences series.
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Sidestone PACIFIC PRESENCES 4B pacific presences-volume 2 Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as... more
Sidestone PACIFIC PRESENCES 4B pacific presences-volume 2 Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities, architectural forms and canoes. These collections constitute a remarkable resource for understanding history and society across Oceania, cross-cultural encounters since the voyages of Captain Cook, and the colonial transformations that have taken place since. They are also collections of profound importance for Islanders today, who have varied responses to their displaced heritage, and renewed interest in ancestral forms and practices. This two-volume book enlarges understandings of Oceanic art and enables new reflection upon museums and ways of working in and around them. In dialogue with Islanders' perspectives, It exemplifies a growing commitment on the part of scholars and curators to work collaboratively and responsively. Volume II illustrates the sheer variety of Pacific artefacts and histories in museums, and similarly the heterogeneity of the issues and opportunities that they raise. Over thirty essays explore materialities, collection histories, legacies of empire, and contemporary projects.
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Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities,... more
Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities, architectural forms and canoes. These collections constitute a remarkable resource for understanding history and society across Oceania, cross-cultural encounters since the voyages of Captain Cook, and the colonial transformations that have taken place since. They are also collections of profound importance for Islanders today, who have varied responses to their displaced heritage, and renewed interest in ancestral forms and practices. This two-volume book enlarges understandings of Oceanic art and enables new reflection upon museums and ways of working in and around them. In dialogue with Islanders' perspectives, It exemplifies a growing commitment on the part of scholars and curators to work collaboratively and responsively. Volume I focuses on the historical formation of ethnographic museums within Europe, the making of those institutions' Pacific collections, and the activation and re-activation of those collections, over time and in the present. Sidestone PACIFIC PRESENCES 4A
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Re-assessment of Captain Cook's voyages, from the perspective of historical anthropology
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Global survey of body art, from the prehistoric period through to contemporary globalised developments, via themes such as sociality, beauty, identity, etc.
Research Interests: Anthropology of the Body, The Body, Body Image, Sociology of the Body, World Art, and 9 moreWorld Art History, Prehistoric Polynesian Tattooing, Body Modification, African Art, Tattoos, Oceanic art, Ancient Egyptian tattooing and scarification practices, World Art Studies, and Body Modification (tattoos and Body Piercings)
Edited book assessing Alfred Gell's Art and Agency (1998)
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Published by Reaktion in the UK and by the University of Chicago Press in North America
http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781780236568
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/R/bo25041177.html
http://www.reaktionbooks.co.uk/display.asp?ISB=9781780236568
http://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/R/bo25041177.html
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This article has been accepted for publication in The Journal of the History of Collections, published by Oxford University Press. The voyages of Captain James Cook (1728-1779) inaugurated, among manifold historical processes, an... more
This article has been accepted for publication in The Journal of the History of Collections, published by Oxford University Press.
The voyages of Captain James Cook (1728-1779) inaugurated, among manifold historical processes, an encounter of textile traditions. Pacific Islanders were keenly interested in European fabrics; Europeans were fascinated by Oceanic textiles such as beaten bark cloth, which was extensively collected from Cook's first voyage onwards. Among manifestations of European interest, bark cloth sample books such as those produced as multiples by Alexander Shaw in 1787 have been a focus of research and curatorial activity in recent years. This essay considers a recently-identified book of specimens which pre-dates Shaw's by some fifteen years. It exemplifies a brief but seemingly intense European interest in Polynesian bark cloth, embracing the fabrics' technical, material, aesthetic, social and ritual aspects.
The voyages of Captain James Cook (1728-1779) inaugurated, among manifold historical processes, an encounter of textile traditions. Pacific Islanders were keenly interested in European fabrics; Europeans were fascinated by Oceanic textiles such as beaten bark cloth, which was extensively collected from Cook's first voyage onwards. Among manifestations of European interest, bark cloth sample books such as those produced as multiples by Alexander Shaw in 1787 have been a focus of research and curatorial activity in recent years. This essay considers a recently-identified book of specimens which pre-dates Shaw's by some fifteen years. It exemplifies a brief but seemingly intense European interest in Polynesian bark cloth, embracing the fabrics' technical, material, aesthetic, social and ritual aspects.
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Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities,... more
Hundreds of thousands of works of art and artefacts from many parts of the Pacific are dispersed across European museums. They range from seemingly quotidian things such as fish-hooks and baskets to great sculptures of divinities, architectural forms and canoes. These collections constitute a remarkable resource for understanding history and society across Oceania, cross-cultural encounters since the voyages of Captain Cook, and the colonial transformations that have taken place since. They are also collections of profound importance for Islanders today, who have varied responses to their displaced heritage, and renewed interest in ancestral forms and practices. This two-volume book enlarges understandings of Oceanic art and enables new reflection upon museums and ways of working in and around them. In dialogue with Islanders' perspectives, It exemplifies a growing commitment on the part of scholars and curators to work collaboratively and responsively. Volume II illustrates the sheer variety of Pacific artefacts and histories in museums, and similarly the heterogeneity of the issues and opportunities that they raise. Over thirty essays explore materialities, collection histories, legacies of empire, and contemporary projects.