The H-Net Network on Material Culture and Vernacular Landscapes and Artifact Preservation will promote and support the study of objects, buildings, sites, structures, landscapes and other material cultural productions as part of the visual record of life.

We welcome announcements, CFP's, queries, contributions, and discussions of all things material! To add yours, click the orange "Start a Discussion" button above this text. 

We also welcome totally new projects. If you have an idea for a new on-going feature or a one time resource for the field, let us know. We are barely scratching the surface of what this website can do and we have a great staff of tech-minded folks at H-Net. If you've got a grand idea, we have people who can help make it happen. Podcasts? Video tours? Image galleries? Digitization projects? We can do those, and more! There are a few thoughts here, but the internet's the limit. Let us know what you're thinking.

And we tweet, too! https://twitter.com/H_Mat_Culture

You can see Recent Queries and Recent Discussions below, and Recent Announcements at the bottom of the page below the scrolling "Occasional Objects" images. All CFP's posted to the site can be found in the links on the right, as can Jobs in Material Culture Studies.

Recent Queries

Discussion published by John McCarthy on Monday, January 8, 2018

Confidentiality of Site Locations vs Public Interpretation

Archaeologists, having seen lots of destruction of sites due to looting, some of a commercial (rather than hobbyist) scale, tend to want to hold all information about archaeological sites (location, contents, etc.) as confidential, actually, as secret.  While this is somewhat understandable, this presents a significant challenge to public education and interpretation on archaeologial topics where often “place” and site content are key aspects of a site’s interpretive value.

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Recent Discussions

Discussion published by Jason Baird on Monday, February 15, 2016

Re: Material Culture Podcasts

Dr. Jon Kay--Director of Traditional Arts Indiana and Curator of Folklife and Cultural Heritage at the Mathers Museum of World Cultures has been active in producing material culture podcasts. His series Artisan Ancestors has 40 episodes (so far) on a wide range of material culture topics. It can be found in iTunes and at the Internet Archive. He has recently begun hosting the Mathers Museum of World Culture's own podcast series Conversations on Culture. With students associated with Traditional Arts Indiana he has also produced a foodways podcast called Second-Servings.

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Occasional Objects series

The scrolling images to left are from H-Material-Culture's "Occasional Objects" series--a periodic informal examination of objects sent in by our subscribers. View the full collection, read the essays, and add your contribution here in Occasional Objects.

Recent Announcements

Discussion published by Leila Alhagh on Tuesday, May 29, 2018

Symposium - From Melancholy to Euphoria: The materialisation of emotion in Middle Eastern Manuscripts

Presenters: Professor Robyn Sloggett AO (Director of the Grimwade Centre for Cultural Material Conservation, University of Melbourne) & Dr Stefano Carboni (Director of Art Gallery of Western Australia).

The programme includes a Persian musical performance with Timothy Johannessen and poetry recital with Professor Amir Zekrgoo - Wednesday 27th June 6pm.

Discussion published by Alison Fox on Monday, May 21, 2018

New Open Access Book: Fonthill Recovered

**** Apologies for any cross posting*****

UCL Press is delighted to announce a brand new open access book that may be of interest to list subscribers: Fonthill Recovered: A Cultural History, edited by Caroline Dakers (Central Saint Martins, University of Arts London)

Download free from https://goo.gl/Q3pAbG

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Fonthill Recovered: A Cultural History

Edited by Caroline Dakers

Discussion published by Gerard Cheshire on Tuesday, May 15, 2018

Discussion about Mediterranean Medieval material culture.

Dear H-Material-Culture members,

Those of you interested in Medieval material culture in the Mediterranean may wish to read a couple of new papers. 

Recently, the writing system of a Medieval manuscript was revealed to be proto-Romance: i.e., the ancestor to Spanish and the other modern Romance languages. In addition, it is written with a proto-Italic alphabet. It is the only known document of this kind and therefore has considerable linguistic and historic importance.

Discussion published by Patrick Smith on Sunday, May 6, 2018

Schedule now out - Visualising Spatial Injustice and Exploitation, June 8th, University of Kent

The schedule is now available for Visualising Spatial Injustice and Exploitation, June 8th, University of Kent. Featuring keynotes by Miranda Pennell and Alberto Toscano. 

Please register for free here: 
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/visualising-spatial-injustice-and-exploitation-tickets-445513...

10.30-11.00 - Welcome

11.00-12.00 - Keynote 1: Miranda Pennell

12.00 - 12.15 - Tea/coffee break

12.15-13.45 - Panel 1

Chair: Patrick Brian Smith

Discussion published by John Anderies on Tuesday, May 1, 2018

Registration open for Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists (UMass Amherst, June 22-24, 2018)

Registration is open for the Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, June 22-24, 2018, at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and an optional Bus Tour of historic Quaker sites following the conference, June 24-26, which will be based out of Providence, Rhode Island.

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