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Fostering interdisciplinary discussion on approaches to material and visual culture.

Contact materialcultureresearcheca@ed.ac.uk for more information.

2023-2024

Semester 1

20 Sept 2023 | Plaster and Porcelain: The Materiality of Race and Gender in Decorative Figurines | Chair: Anna Myers | 5pm - 6pm

4 Oct 2023 | The Art of Subtle Expression: Dress and textiles in forming regional and individual identities | Chair: Dr Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth | 5pm - 6pm

18 Oct 2023 | The Afterlives of Objects: Posthumous prints, books, and furniture in uncovering ethos and identity | Chair: Dr John Lowrey | 5pm - 6pm

1 Nov 2023 | Dolls and Disease: Representations of Gender | Chair: Dr Catriona Murray | 5pm - 6pm

15 Nov 2023 | Wondrous Relics: The ephemeral and material construction of prophecy and pedigree | Chair: Dr Megan McNamee | 5pm - 6pm

29 Nov 2023 | Iron and Indigo: The temporal and exploitative capacities of mineral substances | Chair: Dr Dermot Cavanagh | 5pm - 6pm

13 Dec 2023 | Capturing Elusive Visual Cultures | Chair: Dr Georgia Vullinghs | 5pm - 6pm

Previous series

2022-2023

3 Mar 2023 | Considering Object Biographies | Chair: Madeleine Reynolds | 5pm - 6.30pm 

28 Sep 2022 | Approaching Identities | Chair: Dr Georgia Vullinghs | 5pm - 6pm

12 Oct 2022 | Patronage and Person under the Stuarts | Chair: Dr Catriona Murray | 5pm - 6pm

26 Oct 2022 | Baroque Devotional Visual Culture | Chair: Professor Carol Richardson | 5pm - 6pm

9 Nov 2022 | Pasteboard and Printing Plates: Elusive Objects | Chair: Molly Ingham | 5pm - 6pm

23 Nov 2022 | The Social Life of...Tea | Chair: Dr Caroline McCaffrey-Howarth | 5pm - 6pm

7 Dec 2022 |  The Materiality of Making | Chair: Professor Viccy Coltman | 5pm - 6pm

2021-2022

29 Sep 2021 | Reassessing Female Works | Chair: Anna Myers | 5pm - 6pm

13 Oct 2021 | Imagining Scottish Identities | Chair: Sarah Laurenson | 5pm - 6pm

27 Oct 2021 | Visualising Latin America | Chair: Meha Priyadarshini | 5pm - 6pm | 5pm - 6pm

10 Nov 2021 | Recovering Material Encounters | Chair: Georgia Vullinghs | 5pm - 6pm

24 Nov 2021 | Public Exhibition and Display | Chair: Catriona Murray | 5pm - 6pm

8 Dec 2021 |  Experiences of Empire | Chair: Viccy Coltman | 5pm - 6pm

 

2020-2021

16 Sep 2020 | Images and Influence | 5pm - 6pm

23 Sep 2020 | Material Culture and the Body | 5pm - 6pm

30 Sep 2020 | Consumer Cultures | 5pm - 6pm

7 Oct 2020 | Local and Global | 5pm - 6pm

14 Oct 2020 | Scottish Textiles | 5pm - 6pm

21 Oct 2020 | Colonial Encounters | 5pm - 6pm

28 Oct 2020 | Scientific Knowledge | 5pm - 6pm

4 Nov 2020 | Political Material Culture | 5pm - 6pm

11 Nov 2020 | Working with Shells | 5pm - 6pm

18 Nov 2020 | Interpreting Museums | 5pm - 6pm 

25 Nov 2020 | Memorial Tombs | 5pm - 6pm

2 Dec 2020 | Photo Albums | 5pm - 6pm

9 Dec 2020 | Contemporary Art | 5pm - 6pm

12 Apr 2021 | Death and Commemoration in the 17th & 18th Centuries: Material Culture Histories | 4pm - 5.30pm

20 May 2021 | Textiles Summer Seminar | 4pm

2019-20

18 Sep 2019 | Archives and Material Culture | Valentina Flex, ‘Material Culture and Records of the Holocaust: Reading the Scrolls of Auschwitz’; Sonja Dobroski, ‘The Mark of Freedom: The Plains Feathered Headdress & United States Fraternal Orders’ | Evolution House, Room 5.21 | 5pm - 7pm

2 Oct 2019 | Object Biographies | Clare Tonks, ‘Napoleon’s Waterloo Carriage: Conquering the Emperor’; Sarah Harper, ‘Material and Visual Culture of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) during the Cold War in Scotland’ | Evolution House, Room 5.21 | 5pm - 7pm

16 Oct 2019 | Colour and Materiality | Joyce Dixon, ‘Colour, word, thing: representing natural colour 1760–1820’; Jillian Luke, ‘Adam and Eve printed, painted, poeticised’ | Evolution House, Room 5.21 | 5pm - 7pm

30 Oct 2019 | Books and Materiality | Valentina Flex, ‘Material Culture and Records of the Holocaust: Reading the Scrolls of Auschwitz’; Sonja Dobroski, ‘The Mark of Freedom: The Plains Feathered Headdress & United States Fraternal Orders’ | Evolution House, Room 5.21 | 5pm - 7pm

13 Nov 2019 | Politics and Material and Visual Culture | Dexter Govan, ‘Orange aesthetics: material and visual culture in Belfast Orangeism during the third Home Rule crisis, 1910-1914’; Carlo Scapecchi, ‘Tapestries as status-markers in Early Modern Europe and Renaissance Italy’ | Location to be confirmed | 5pm - 7pm

27 Nov 2019 | Textiles and Fashion | Cacsi Ritchie, ‘Fashioning Prince Rogers Nelson, 1980-1984: A study of Trench Coat’; Dr Alison Mayne, ‘A Very Scottish Stash’ | Evolution House, Room 5.21 | 5pm - 7pm

11 Dec 2019 | The Body | Dr Freya Gowrley, ’Visual and Material Cultures of the Fat Body in Britain & its Empire, 1750-1830’; Dr Camilla Mørk Røstvik, ‘Do Not Flush Feminine Products!’ The Environmental History, Biohazards and Norms Contained in the UK Sanitary Bin Industry since 1960’