Workshop participants came from across the University, including faculty and graduate students from the following departments: Anthropology; Art History; English; Environment, Textiles & Design; Folklore; History; Landscape Architecture; Languages & Cultures of Asia; and Music; as well as staff from the Chipstone The following is a partial listing of session titles:
Mellon Workshops
During the 2000-01 and 2001-02 academic years, The Center for the Humanities at UW (with support of a generous grant from the Mellon Foundation) funded the Material Culture Group to host a workshop series on “The Ritual(s) of Everyday Life.” 
These workshops enabled our group to push forward with vigor to understand new materials, build new innovative curriculum, and spread the word about the study of material culture throughout the university and larger Madison community. At our monthly meetings, participants examined varying aspects of the material evidence of rituals of everyday life across cultures and time. 
By ritual, we were interested in understanding both formal and informal patterns of behavior that people use to help define their place in the world relative to others. Rituals examined were either formal (such as a religious ceremony) or informal (such as everyday dining), but they shared the basic notion that such behavior has pattern and most often leaves material evidence. 
Foundation (Milwaukee); the Elvehjem Museum of Art; Memorial Library; the Milwaukee Art Museum; the Silver Buckle Press; and the Wisconsin Historical Society. Graduate students participated in all workshop events and helped organize the logistics of many of the sessions.
"Tea Drinking Rituals: East & West"
"Rituals of Bathing"
"Rituals of Museum-Going"
"Adventures in Tailgating"
"Landscapes of Grief: Rituals of Memorialization in the United States"
"Dreams Made Real: The Preservation of Self-taught Art"
"Film Presentation: The Sid Boyum Sculpture Project"
Teaching
Fieldtrips
Workshops
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