“Material Culture” refers to the physical traces of the past. This includes diverse, scholarly approaches for studying those physical traces. These may be things that humans have found, adapted, created, or shaped for their use. It is both the stuff of the past, and a set of methods to study them. As an interdisciplinary set of methods, students study the material world through courses in anthropology, art, art history, design studies, history, landscape architecture, literature, and many more departments.
The Center for Design and Material Culture supports the study of material culture through our curricular collaborations, research projects, exhibitions, and programs.
Material Culture Workshop
Throughout the academic year, the Center for Design and Material Culture hosts a monthly workshop to promote an interdisciplinary dialogue around the study of material culture on the University of Wisconsin–Madison campus. This platform, led by Professor Yuhang Li, Faculty Director for Material Culture, brings together scholars to share their current research on material culture. The workshop is open to methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of material culture across disciplines, geographical areas, and chronological periods. We welcome faculty, curators, researchers, and students who are committed to the study of material culture. Each session focuses on specific themes and involves presentations and discussions but can also include museum object viewing sessions and studio visits.
Would you like to participate? Connect and let us know.
- Addison Nace, “Weaving the Archive: Maya Textiles Heritage Knowledge and Histories”
- Yongxin Kong, “So Much Longing in A Flower: Victorian Hair Flower-making, Botanical Knowledge and Floriography”
- Dr. Elizabeth Athens, “The Early Modern Anatomist as Master Artisan”
- Svea Larson, “‘I followed my cookbook’s instructions and my own taste.’ Recipe Collections and Practice-Based Education in Olga Hansson’s Culinary Vocational Training, Sweden circa 1910-1930”
- Dr. Anna Andrzejewski, “A Tropical Paradise?: Living Inside (and Outside) of South Florida’s Suburban Leisure Landscape”
- Tania Kolarik, “Textility: A New Textile Centric Art Historical Methodology”
- Dehlia Mitchell-Gray, “Cumbrous and Clumsy, Sharp and Bright: The Making, Use, and Import of Needles in Nineteenth Century China”
- Liesl Chatman, “Stories in Wood”
- Chi-Lynn Lin, “The Invention and Transformation of Chinese Carpets in the Nineteenth Century”
- Dr. Ann Smart Martin, “Jokes Came in with Candles”: The Im/Material Culture of Domestic Lighting”
- Claire Kilgore, “Is That a Plaid, Check, or Tartan? Cataloguing a Visually Ubiquitous Medieval Textile”
- Dr. Sophie Pitman, “Research on display: curatorial strategies in Remaking the Renaissance“
- Travis Olson, “‘Making It’ on the Edge of the West: The Speculative Landscape of Southwestern North Dakota”
- Dr. Sarah Anne Carter, “Feeling like a Museum: Case Studies from the Milwaukee Public Museum”
- Dr. Janine Yorimoto Boldt and Carolyn Herrera-Perez, “Centering Material Culture: Case Studies from the Chazen Museum of Art’s Collection”
Affiliated Program
The Center for Design and Material Culture collaborates with a number of material culture programs offered through the Design Studies Department in the School of Human Ecology through course engagements, exhibitions in our galleries, research visits to the collection, and more. We also offer a number of student employment and fellowship opportunities available to all UW–Madison students.
Certificate in Material Culture
The Undergraduate Certificate in Material Culture allows UW students to explore diverse ways of making sense of the material world.
Material Culture Courses
Material Culture refers to an interdisciplinary set of methods and may be found in departments across campus.
History of Material Culture at UW
The University of Wisconsin–Madison has a long history of supporting material culture pedagogy and research under the guidance of Dr. Ann Smart Martin, Stanley and Polly Stone (Chipstone) Professor Emeritus of American Decorative Arts and Material Culture. Professor Martin is the founding director of the UW–Material Culture Program and Material Culture Faculty Group, first located in the Department of Art History and now within the School of Human Ecology. The Center for Design and Material Culture celebrated Prof. Martin’s contributions to material culture at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the exhibition Questioning Things: A Quarter Century of Material Culture Studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.