Material Literacy in the Age of the Global Turn

Material Literacy in the Age of the Global Turn

19-20 June 2025 – University of Warwick Faculty of Arts Building 5.03

Confirmed Keynote Speaker: Professor Beverly Lemire (University of Alberta)

Objects tell stories. Historians have gradually, but comprehensively, become aware of this insight, and have started to integrate this into their work. Material culture, and especially material culture in a global context, has formed a significant area of focus for Warwick’s Global History and Culture Centre. Books and articles have been published, and exhibitions have been organised, but the skill that lies at its heart—the ability to read objects as bearers of historical evidence—can remain elusive. To address this, the co-organizers of this workshop, Anne Gerritsen and Giorgio Riello, propose to hold a two-day workshop on the theme of ‘Material Literacy’. The aim of this workshop to foster a conversation between a small group of material culture history experts and curators and a larger group of PhD students and early career researchers on how to develop skills suitable for the understanding of and working with objects as sources for historical research and teaching.

DAY 1: 19 June 2025

13.45 opening remarks

14.00 – 16.00 Panel I: 5-minute object-based presentations, followed by discussion

Meha Priyadarshini (Edinburgh), Avalon Fotheringham (V&A), Rebecca Unsworth (Birmingham Museum), Sarah Longair (Lincoln), Clare Rowan (Warwick), Rachel Silberstein (independent scholar), Marta Ajmar (Warwick), David Anderson (Warwick)

16.00 Break

16.30 – 18.00 Keynote Lecture

Beverly Lemire, ‘Conversations with the Colonial Past: Gauging Material Meanings’

 

DAY 2: 20 June 2025

09.00 – 10.30 Panel II: 10-minute presentations (objects optional)

Francesco Montuori (EUI), Amber Burbidge (EUI), Eloisa Ocando Thomas (Warwick), Stewart Knight (Edinburgh), Vendy Hoppe (Manchester)

10.30 – 11.00 break

11.00 – 12.30 Panel III: 10-minute presentations (objects optional)

Elisa Chazal (EUI), Karin Sprang (Warwick), Jordan Mitchell-King (DMU), Hannah Bradshaw (Warwick), Natasha Burbridge (Warwick)

12.30 – 12.45 concluding comments

This event is sponsored by the University of Warwick’s Humanities Research Centre, the Institute of Advanced Studies, and the Global History and Culture Centre and organised by Giorgio Riello and Anne Gerritsen.