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 Susan Garfinkel on Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists, June 22-24, 2018

Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists
University of Massachusetts at Amherst
Amherst, Massachusetts
June 22-24, 2018

Registration is now open.

The Conference of Quaker Historians and Archivists (CQHA) will hold its next biennial conference at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on June 22-24, 2018. The conference will be followed by an optional post-conference bus tour to Quaker sites in Massachusetts and Rhode Island on June 24-26.

Discussion published by Patrick Smith on Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Free registration now open - Visualising Spatial Injustice and Exploitation, University of Kent, June 8th

 
 
An interdisciplinary symposium of scholars and media-makers exploring the role of moving image in countering spatial injustices.
 
Keynotes: Miranda Pennell (Independent, LUX) // Alberto Toscano (Goldsmiths)
 
As the noted political geographer and urban theorist Edward Soja has suggested, unde
Discussion published by Lisa Godson on Tuesday, April 17, 2018

Postgraduate scholarships available to study MA Design History & Material Culture at National College of Art & Design, Dublin

This is a reminder that full-fee scholarships are available for applicants to the National College of Art & Design MA Design History and Material Culture, deadline April 30th. Further information on the scholarship and application process is available here:http://www.ncad.ie/postgraduate/school-of-visual-culture/postgraduate-scholarships/

Discussion published by Tim Urban on Tuesday, April 3, 2018

War, Photo Archives and the Temporalities of Cultural Heritage

War, Photo Archives and the Temporalities of Cultural Heritage

Workshop organized by Costanza Caraffa, Almut Goldhahn (Photothek of the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz – Max-Planck-Institut, Florence) and Ewa Manikowska (Institute of Art of the Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw) with the generous support of the Deutsch-Polnische Wissenschaftsstiftung

Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz - Max-Planck-Institut
Florence, 18-20 April 2018  

  

Discussion published by Sami L. De Giosa on Monday, March 26, 2018

Medieval Eurabia: Religious Crosspollinations in Architecture, Art and Material Culture during the High and Late Middle Ages (1000-1600)

Panel: Medieval Eurabia: Religious Crosspollinations in Architecture, Art and Material Culture during the High and Late Middle Ages (1000-1600)

Organisers:

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