Catherine Richardson and Tara Hamling maintain a Blog called Material Histories (http://materialhistories.wordpress.com/). The blog promotes their collaborative work on three projects (A Day at Home in Early Modern England, Research Companion to Early Modern Material Culture in Europe and Ways of Seeing the English Domestic Interior 1500-1700)
Brief Introductions to these fascinating projects are copied below:
A Day at Home in Early Modern England
We are writing a book about how the ‘middling sort’ used domestic spaces and objects on a daily basis in early modern England. Called A Day at Home in Early Modern England: the materiality of domestic life, the book will be published by Yale University Press. It will develop new methods for the study of domestic material culture and examine how people experienced their living spaces and furnishings – from bed chambers and warming pans to apostle spoons and chamber pots.
Research Companion to Early Modern Material Culture in Europe
We realised a Research Companion for early modern material culture would be enormously useful for our research and teaching. So we decided to put one together! We want this Reader to be genuinely interdisciplinary, representing current research across humanities disciplines and the museums and heritage sector. We are working with Professor David Gaimster, Director of the Hunterian Museum and Art Gallery in Glasgow, as our co-editor, and a world-wide team of specialists as contributors. The first stage is an event in spring 2013 – watch this space for information. The volume will be published by Ashgate as part of their ‘Research Companions’ series.
Ways of Seeing the English Domestic Interior 1500-1700
This AHRC funded project will establish a research network to investigate peoples’ experience of household life in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and consider how we might use this information to enhance our experience of visiting historic properties in the twenty-first century. The network will focus on the case of decorative textiles and brings together researchers in the humanities and sciences, conservators, museums curators and heritage professionals to share knowledge and assess how the latest developments in computer science and cognitive science can help us to interpret and present historic interiors and furnishings.