Material Matters

The Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware invites submissions for papers to be given at the Tenth Annual Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars.

Focus: Object-based research has the potential to expand and even reinvent our understanding of culture and history. In honor of the tenth anniversary of the MCSES, we seek a broad range of papers from emerging material culture scholars. Whether exploring the latest theories, viewing existing material through a new lens, or reinterpreting standing historical conversations with an object-based focus, proposed papers should exemplify the possibilities in material culture research. In exploring these material matters, we hope to promote an interdisciplinary discussion on the state of material culture studies today.

Disciplines represented at past symposia include American studies, anthropology, archaeology, consumer studies, English, gender studies, history, museum studies and the histories of art, architecture, design and technology. We welcome proposals from graduate students, postdoctoral scholars, and those just beginning their teaching or professional careers.

Format: The symposium will consist of nine presentations divided into three panels. Each presentation is limited to twenty minutes, and each panel is followed by comments from established scholars in the field. There will be two morning sessions and one afternoon session, with breaks for discussion following each session and during lunch. Participants will also have the opportunity to tour Winterthur's unparalleled collection of early American decorative arts and to engage in a roundtable discussion on Friday, April 13.
Travel grants of up to $300 will be available for presenters.

Submissions: The proposal should be no more than 300 words and should clearly indicate the focus of your object-based research, the critical approach you take toward that research, and the significance of your research beyond the academy. While the audience for the symposium consists mainly of university and college faculty and graduate students, we encourage broader participation. In evaluating proposals, we will give preference to those papers that keep a more diverse audience in mind.

Send your proposal, with a current c.v. of no more than two pages, to emerging.scholarsgmail.com.

Deadline: Proposals must be received by 5 p.m. on Wednesday, November 16, 2011. Speakers will be notified of the vetting committee's decision in January 2012.
Confirmed speakers will be asked to provide symposium organizers with digital images for use in publicity and are required to submit a final draft of their papers by March 5, 2012.

More information can be found online: http://www.udel.edu/materialculture/ess_call.html