The Material Collective

A collaborative of art historians and students of visual culture

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As a collaborative of art historians and students of visual culture, Material Collective seeks to foster a safe space for alternative ways of thinking about objects.

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From the Manifesto

We are the Material Collective, a group of medievalists interrogating visual materials. We seek to cooperate, encourage, share, promote transparency, touch, desire, destabilize, amuse, and blunder.

Our specific interests vary, but we are all committed to prioritizing the materiality of things, the relationships between those things and the human beings who experience them, and the intimacy of past and present moments in time.

We strive for transparency in our practice, and we encourage the same in our institutional surroundings.

“As we celebrate, dwell in, and embrace the basic materiality of our objects, we work to find ways to foreground the material of the objects themselves into larger historical analysis.

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In the coming week, there may be some public discussion about a mythical “war” in medieval studies. Unfortunately, certain senior faculty in positions of power have repeatedly engaged with aggressive, threatening individuals in the so-called “alt-right.” These extreme right-wing individuals have online followings that include people willing to engage in dangerous activities like stalking, harassment, […]

Conference Review: The Art of the Poor in the Late Middle Ages and Renaissance, the Warburg Institute, University of London, June 14 to 15, 2018

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By: Shannon Emily Gilmore, PhD Candidate, Department of History of Art & Architecture, University of California, Santa Barbara An exciting and groundbreaking conference was held at the University of London’s Warburg Institute on June 14 and 15, 2018. The Warburg represents one of the world’s leading centers in the study of images and culture, and its […]