Visiting scholars brought to UW-Madison through the Material Culture program have enabled students to learn from the wide array of voices that make up the field of material culture studies. On April 29, 2007, BA Harrington (MFA UW-Madison, currently an MA candidate in Art History) spoke informally about her work in the exhibition, This Mango is Now an iPod. In this video interview, Harrington discusses her work on both a personal and professional level, including her interest in the relations between contemporary art and 18th century furniture. The exhibition ran at the Soap Factory in Minneapolis, from April 20 - June 10, 2007. On Thursday, April 19, 2007 Bill Brown, Professor of English at the University of Chicago and one of the world's leading theorists of material culture studies, delivered a talk entitled Things, Others, and Us at 4:00 PM in room 7191 Helen C. White Hall at UW-Madison. The following day, Prof. Brown participated in a Brown Bag discussion Thing/Theory from Noon to 1PM in room 6191 Helen C. White Hall. On Friday, April 13, 2007, Ann Smart Martin , Professor of Art History at UW-Madison , will give a lecture entitled Banish the Darkness: Illumination and Reflection in Early Modern England and America at Noon at the University Club on Library Mall in Madison. This lecture will be sponsored by the UW-Madison Center for the Humanities, and is part of their "Humanities Friday Lunch" series. On March 14, 2007,author and research specialist Kate Fitz Gibbon, lectured on "The Social Life of Cloth: Colonial and Revolutionary Period Central Asia" at the School of Huma Ecology. Her talk featured rare and vintage photographs of textiles from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
On September 21, 2006, Cynthia Becker, Assistant Professor
of African Art History at Boston University, made a return visit to
UW-Madison, where she received her Ph.D. She delivered a talk entitled Berber
Women's Body Arts: The Multi-Sensory Aesthetics of Amazigh Dress in
North Africa at the Department of Art History colloquium. This talk
coincided with a three-day visit in which Prof. Becker gave multiple
lectures on her research, as well as hosting an "Amazigh Night" in
Madison featuring Amazigh music, food, and a fashion show. UW-Madison associate professor of English and material culture faculty member Lisa Cooper presented
"Urban Utterances: Merchants, Artisans, and the Alphabet in Caxton's 'Dialogues in French and English'" at the Department of Art History colloquium on April 28, 2006. Charles Hummel, former deputy director of the Winterthur Museum, guided a discussion on "Ethics and White Collar Crime in Not-For-Profits," on April 19, 2006. Attendance included UW faculty and students as well as employees of the Chazen Museum of Art and the Wisconsin HIstorical Museum. This event was sponsored by the Material Culture Program and the Art History Grad Forum. Noted American folklorist Don Yoder presented a talk entitled " Folklore and Folklife in America: A Personal View" on April 12, 2006. Yoder is a Professor Emeritus of Religious Studies and Folklore and Folklife at the University of Pennsylvania. The lecture was sponsored by the Max Kade Institute for German-American Studies, the Folklore Program, and the Department of German, with funding courtesy of the Anonymous Fund. Professor Martin's "American Decorative Arts and Interiors" class attended a lecture by Yushu Chen, professor of Chinese furniture history at Nanking Forestry University, sponsored by the Department of Art, on October 28, 2005. Noted decorative arts scholar and former deputy director of the Winterthur Museum Charles Hummel presented lectures in two classes on October 5, 2005. He spoke on "Pennsylvania German Painted Furniture" in Professor Martin's "American Decorative Arts and Interiors" class and about "Rural Craftsmen in Colonial America" in the "Dimensions of Material Culture" course taught by Professors Martin and Boyd. The Dimensions of Material Culture course offers students a unique opportunity to learn from both scholars and professionals in the field. The class includes a series of field trips to area galleries and institutions. On October 28, 2004, Kenneth Ames, Professor at the Bard Center for Graduate Studies in the Decorative Arts presented "Table-top Tourism, or, Pictorial Pottery Revisited," a consideration of ceramics and visual literacy. On October 29, 2002, John Styles head of Post Graduate Studies and Deputy Head of research at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London, lectured to the public on "Designs on Novelty: Creating New Things in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century London" and then discussed the recent renovation of the Decorative Arts Galleries at the Victoria and Albert Museum with the Introduction to Museum Studies class. October 7, 2002 Ian Gale (marquetry expert and restorer) lectured in the Dimensions of Material Culture class on "Making Furniture: Marquetry and Other Ornamental Techniques." In a visit to Ian's studio, Dimensions of Material Culture students saw his restoration project for a house museum with severely water-damaged furniture. On September 18, 2002 Ivor Nöel Hume (archaologist, social historian, and author) presented "Every Pot has a Purpose: An Analysis of Chamber Pots" to the Dimensions of Material Culture seminar. On September 18, 2002, author and furniture historian Bob Trent lectured in the American Decorative Arts and Interiors course about European influences on American decorative arts.
PAST SPEAKERS:
On December 6, 2005, Thomas Carter, Associate Professor of Architecture at the University of Utah, delivered a lecture titled "Sagebrush Cities: The Urban Landscape of Cattle Ranching in Northeastern Nevada, 1860-1920." Professor Carter's primary interest is the study of vernacular cultural landscapes, and particularly those found in the American West. He is currently finishing a book on early Mormon architecture titled Faith and Good Works: Making the Mormom Landscape in Utah's Sanpete Valley. This lecture was sponsored by the Art History Department, the Folklore Program, and the Department of Landscape Architecture, with the support of the University Lectures Committee.
Carter also led a workshop for faculty and graduate students: "Building for the 'New Time': Nineteenth-Century Scandinavian Art and Architecture in Mormon Utah," on December 7.
James E. Young, professor of English and Judaic Studies at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, presented a public lecture titled "Memory, Absence, and the End of the Monument in Berlin and New York" on November 17, 2005. Young's lecture was part of the Violent Texts/Violent Textiles symposium organized by the Legacies of Violence Reseach Circle and co-sponsored by the Center for Humanities, in conjunction with the exhibition Weavings of War: Fabrics of Memory at the Design Gallery of the School of Human Ecology.
The Fall 2005 course featured:
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a talk by Professor Henry Drewal (Art History), on the exhibition he curated, Stitching History: Patchwork Quilts by Africans (Siddis) in India, at the Design Gallery of the School of Human Ecology
- a tour of the exhibition Person to Person: Communicating Identity Through Wisconsin Folk Objects at the Wisconsin Historical Museum by Joe Kapler, curator of domestic life.
- a visit to Starry Transit, an art installation by Wisconsin artist Martha Glowacki and commentary on museum exhibition practices from Jon Prown, director, Chipstone Foundation.
Click here to see more of Sir Noel Hume's publications 
Teaching
Fieldtrips
Workshops
Exhibitions
Conferences
