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. Read more about us.
From the Blog
Posts and contributions View all posts and articles-
Teaching Medieval Art History in a Time of White Supremacy
A post by guest blogger Luke Fidler.
When George Washington presided over the 1787 convention that brought about the Constitution, he sat in a chair designed by Philadelphia furniture-maker John Folwell. I find Washington’s armchair to be a fitting example for thinking about how to weaponize the medieval art history syllabus in 2017. -
“Celtic” Crosses and White Supremacism
In 2012, I published a book that was inspired by my 2001 dissertation on Irish crosses. In both the dissertation and the book, I was interested in how the symbol of the ringed Irish cross had become synonymous with an Irish cultural (and often ethnic) identity. My interest in the use of the ringed cross—as […]
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D(r)ipping books
A guest post from Dr. Tina Bawden.
Everybody who still reads actual books has experienced this: You are caught in the rain while reading on a park bench and rain drops make your library book all wavy.
From the Manifesto
May 10, 2012 Read More-
Our project touches upon both form and content, as we pursue a lyrical and experimental style of writing along with a more humane, collaborative, and supportive process of scholarship.
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We are also working to increase the legitimacy of these approaches in the academic world, primarily by practicing them, loudly and often.
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Central to this effort is a desire to support each other as we attempt to create experimental approaches, and to embrace both the successes and potential failures of our ventures into new ways of thinking.
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We strive for transparency in our practice, and we encourage the same in our institutional surroundings.
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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.
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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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For us, this is not a mere exercise—we stand by our manifesto. And we revel in this opportunity to raise a glass with all y’all, right here and now.
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We encourage spontaneity in writing art history, including an acknowledgement of our subject positions; therefore we embrace the incorporation of personal narrative and reflection in our historical interpretations.
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As a collaborative of students of visual culture, Material Collective seeks to foster a safe space for alternative ways of thinking about objects.
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We value: experimental processes; risk-taking; transparency, revelation; a blank space; joy in faltering, together. So say we all. So say we all.
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We are as much a support group as a scholarly group. We share the joys and sorrows of career, life and our academic work.
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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.
