Hansen, IngeSalvadori, SalvadoriBonadurer, Jordan2024-09-202024-09-202021Bonadurer, Jordan. "Entangled Agencies: Reframing Roman Articulated Dolls". Master's Thesis, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy. 2021.https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14490/278Master of Arts in Art History -- John Cabot University, Spring 2021.While previous scholarship has addressed possible social purposes of the dolls, I examine the material agency of the doll itself. In this paper, I first examine how the visual qualities of the doll hold agency, specifically in regard to imperial-image referencing on a small-scale private image of a woman in the form of a doll. After examining the visual agency of the object, I seek to consider how the materiality of the doll gives it purpose as a “thing” and initiates viewer participation. Lastly, I examine the power of haptic qualities related to touch, adornment, and sensation in forming an interactive loop between object and participant in these objects. I aim to view the dolls as physical assemblages in terms of agency and ‘thingly-ness,’ building upon the previous archaeological and social reading. To examine a Roman articulated doll in this way, that is, an object that has the power to exert an impetus from the viewer, I will consider the major aspects which contribute to its ‘thingly’ agency, namely its visual, material, and haptic agency. These qualities form an intersected map, marking inherent points of the object which contribute to its ability to act on participants. Through a return to the ‘thing’, Roman articulated dolls can be examined as a class of things that has power in reciprocal exchanges. These observations regarding the visual, material, and haptic agency of the dolls have been approached using theories which emphasize webs of connections between objects and humans. Rather than viewing objects as static and representational, these theories premise that things have reciprocal power in exchanges. Namely, thing theory, Actor Network theory, and Entanglement are useful in observing objects in ways which do not rely on purely social or iconographic information. When objects become things, something rooted in agency, they too can be examined as a type of player which causes action.vi, 47 pagesenAttribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internationalhttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/DollsRoman artArt and societyThesis