Our very popular graduate training programme, funded by the CHASE consortium, is back again for 2017 – book now to avoid disappointment!
Material Witness: Taste, Contact and Memory
University of Kent, 22nd-24th May 2017.
Material Witness this year is taking the form of a residential course at the University of Kent where we will work intensively to explore theoretical concepts about materiality, in respect of the ideas of ‘taste’, ‘contact’ and ‘memory’. Taste has been a key concept in respect of material culture studies since the publication of Pierre Bourdieu’s Distinction (1984), with his concept of ‘cultural capital’ intimately linked to the accrual of particular, socially prestigious kinds of taste. Guided by some experts in material culture theory, the residential will explore how ideas of ‘contact’– in terms of both communication between people and the sense of touch – and the faculty of memory allow us to re-examine this critical concept. The residential will feature practical sessions, through which you will work in detail with various types of material things as critical prompts, alongside reading and discussion groups around key theory in the field. Delegates will be asked to apply readings to their own research before presenting on these findings. The residential, and the delegates’ incorporation of their readings into their own research, will feature on the Material Web (http://materialwebkent.co.uk/), and worked up versions will be published as a special issue in the CHASE Encounters journal.
Whilst the programme is run by pre-modernists, it strongly encourages participants from a range of disciplines and periods, so that we can debate with and learn from one another.
To book, go to: http://www.chase.ac.uk/events/2017/5/22/material-witness
Programme
Monday 22nd May
Session 1 (1-2): Introductions and discussion of preliminary reading; adoption of objects for discussion and writing project.
Session 2 (3-5): Beaney House of Art and Knowledge to get to know the objects.
Session 3 (6-7): Plenary lecture, Dr Kate Smith, University of Birmingham, ‘The Significance of Dispossession: Understanding Absence and Loss in Material Culture Studies’
Tuesday 23rd May
Session 1 (10-12): Discussion of reading set for the day on ‘Taste’, Dr Stephen Kelly, Queen’s Belfast.
Session 2 (1-3): Visit to Canterbury Cathedral Archive and Library to view documents and other objects.
Session 3 (4-6): Writing session for all participants (production of presentation for following morning/materials for blog), with Dr Kelly.
Session 4 (6-7): Plenary lecture, Prof William Engle, Sewanee: The University of the South, on ‘Material Traces of Early Modern Mnemonic Culture’.
Wednesday 24th May
Session 1 (9-11): Presentation on chosen objects.
Session 2 (11:30-12:30): Roundtable on Taste, Contact and Memory (Engel, Kelly, Richardson, Perry and others).
Session 3 (12:30-1): Final round-up and planning of written work.