Material culture is often described as a “survival” of the past in the present, be it in the form of evocative fragments or as “traces” enlisted in historical inquiry. The implicit preoccupation with our relationship with the past has diverted attention from the relationship which past actors had with their future and the ways in which they relied on material culture to shape that relationship. If the future-oriented perceptions of past actors are at all considered, they tend to be rationalized in terms of social and economic interests that are external to the material engagements underpinning cultural phenomena. In this symposium an international panel of material culture specialists will explore how imagination and planning towards the future affect relationships between objects and people. How did the future possibilities envisaged by past actors condition the ways in which they created, perceived, transformed, stored, and discarded objects? What are the broader methodological implications of understanding artefacts as starting-points for, rather than outcomes of, cultural practices? To what extent can material culture be understood to embody the desired life-paths of human and non-human agents?
Thursday, April 7, 1:30–4 pm
Friday, April 8, 9:30 am–6:40 pm
38 West 86 Street, Lecture Hall / Zoom
This event is open to the BGC community and invited guests.
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