Enfilade

Programming from CRASSH at the University of Cambridge:

Things: Material Cultures of the Long Eighteen Century
Centre for Research in the Arts, Social Sciences and Humanities (CRASSH), Cambridge, ongoing series

The seminar meets alternate Tuesdays 12.30-2.30pm in the Seminar Room, Alison Richard Building, West Road. Please note that there will not be sandwiches served this term, so the seminar will start promptly at 12.30. You are welcome to join the speakers for lunch afterwards.

The early-modern period was the age of ‘stuff.’ Public production, collection, display and consumption of objects grew in influence, popularity, and scale. The form, function, and use of objects, ranging from scientific and musical instruments to weaponry and furnishings were influenced by distinct and changing features of the period. Early-modern knowledge was not divided into strict disciplines, in fact practice across what we now see as academic boundaries was essential to material creation. This seminar series uses an approach based on objects to encourage us to consider the unity of ideas of this period, to emphasise the lived human experience of technology and art, and the global dimension of material culture. We will build on our success discussing the long eighteenth century in 2012-13 to look at the interdisciplinary thinking through which early modern material culture was conceived, adding an attention to the question of what a ‘thing’ is, to gain new perspectives on the period through its artefacts.

Each seminar will feature two talks each
considering a way of thinking about objects.

30 April 2013 — Printed Things
Sean Roberts (University of Southern California) and Elizabeth Upper (UL Munby Fellow)

14 May 2013 — Paper, Making, Things
Elaine Leong (Max Planck Institute, Berlin) and Helen Smith (University of York)

28 May 2013 — Handling Things
Melanie Vandenbrouck (National Maritime Museum), Felicity Powell (Artist), and Ben Carpenter (University of Wolverhampton)

11 June 2013 — Painted Things
Matthew Hunter (McGill University) and Mark Hallett (Paul Mellon Centre)

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