Colloquia

In 2008, the CMCS began sponsoring a one-credit undergraduate course on a topic in the field of material culture studies. For the past five years, the talks have been recorded on the UDCapture system. Below are the colloquia schedules and available recorded lectures.

2013 Let’s Eat: The Material Culture of Food

28 August	Deborah C. Andrews, Center for Material Culture Studies,“Introduction to the Series” Sandy Isenstadt, Department of Art History, “Visions of Plenty: The American Refrigerator in the 1950”
4 September	Jaime Margalotti, Special Collections, University Library,“Cookery, Curatives, and Community: The Cookbook Collection in the UD Library”
11 September	Tom Pauly, Department of English,“American Food and Wine Since 1960”
18 September	David Ames, Center for Historic Architecture and Design,“Fast Food Architecture”
25 September	Bill Deering, Department of Art,“Visualizing Desire: A Food Photographer’s Romp”
2 October	Deborah Krohn, Bard Graduate Center, New York,“Pots and Pans in Renaissance Rome”
9 October	Jennifer Lindner McGlinn, Author, cook and blogger,“Living Deliciously As Brought to You on Screen and Page”
16 October	Lauren Brincat and Philippe Halbert, Winterthur Fellows,“Records and Recipes: Food and Drink in Early America”
23 October	Fred DeMicco, Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Management,“Beds, Burgers, Booze, and Cruise”
30 October	David Leicht, Regional Culinary Director, ARAMARK Higher Education,“A Chef’s Perspective on Great Food for Great Numbers”
6 November	Perry Chapman, Department of Art History“400 Year Old Cheese: Food in 17th Century Dutch Painting”
13 November	Anne Krulikowski, Department of History,“You are Cordially Invited: Eating and Entertaining at Rockwood”
20 November	Margaret Stetz, Department of Women and Gender Studies,“Mr Peanut, Dandy”
27 November	(no class)
4 December	Tiernan Alexander, Winterthur Fellow,“Spicy Tales from South Philly: Researching Colonial Mexican Foodways without leaving Your Backyard”

Recorded Lectures for “Let’s Eat”: https://udcapture.udel.edu/2013f/mcst299-010/

2012: The Material Culture of Sports

29 August	Matt Robinson, Director, Institute for Global Studies, and Department of Business Administration,“The Value Internationally of an Olympic Gold Medal.”
05 September	Tom Pauly, Department of English,“The Early Evolution of American Sports from Leisure Recreation to Strenuous Competition.”
12 September	David Smith, Department of Biological Sciences,“Baseball Scorecards: Advertisements as Social Commentary.”
19 September	Mark Bowden, Writer and Department of English,“Inside the National Football League.”
26 September	David Ames, Center for Historic Architecture,“Take me Out to the Old Ballpark.”
03 October	Hye-Shin Kim and Sharron Lennon, Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies,“Sportswear: Brand Fit and Counterfeit.”
10 October	John Jebb, Department of English,“Sports in American Literature: Books and Values.”
17 October	Alison Kreitzer, Department of History,“’The Racer’s Edge’: STP and Marketing in Modern Motorsports.”
24 October	James Angelini, Department of Communications,“Sports, Gender, and Television.”
31 October	Rebecca Johnson Melvin, Special Collections, UD Library and Ray Nichols, Lead Graffiti,“Working with Special Collections: Not Just a Spectator Sport.” [For background on the Tour de Lead Graffiti], see http://leadgraffiti.com/news/tour-de-lead-graffiti-2012/14.asp
07 November	Kyle Herring, UD student and skater,“Myth, Memory, and Memorabilia: The 1980 Olympic ‘Miracle on Ice’ in Lake Placid.”
14 November	Anne Krulikowski, Department of History,“The American Country Club: Architecture for Suburban Sports.”
28 November	Ron Whittington,“Lights on the Field of Dreams: The Negro League and Night Play”
05 December	Alex McKee, Department of English,“From Tea Parties to Tournaments: Tennis, Modernity, and Gender”

Recorded lectures for “The Material Culture of Sports”: https://udcapture.udel.edu/2012f/mcst299-010/

2011: The Architecture of Shopping

07 Sept	Susan Strasser, Department of History, “Woolworth to Wal-Mart: Mass merchandising and the changing American culture of consumption”
14 Sept	Sandy Isenstadt, Department of Art History, “The spaces of shopping”
21 Sept	Anne Krulikowski, Department of History, “The shop around the corner: Neighborhood stores in the American City”
28 Sept	MEET IN THE MARK SAMUELS LASNER COLLECTION, Room 116A, UD Library Mark Samuels Lasner, Senior Researcher,“Collecting as shopping”
05 Oct	David Ames, Center for Historic Architecture and Design, “The shopping center as retail pinball machine, and you are the ball”
12 Oct	Sharron Lennon, Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies, “Online visual merchandising: Perceptions are everything”
19 Oct	Hye-Shin Kim, Department of Fashion and Apparel Studies, “Shopping beyond buying: Shopping as entertainment”
26 Oct	J. Ritchie Garrison, Department of History, “The architectural and material politics of markets and shopping, 1700-2000”
02 Nov	Amy Powis, Department of English, “From trading posts to Trader Joe’s: How shopping for food moves American culture”
09 Nov	Tim Murray, Special Collections, University Library, “Catalog shopping from Burpee to Sears and everything in between”
16 Nov	David Suisman, Department of History, “(Way) before MP3s: The origins of shopping for music”
30 Nov	David Shearer, Department of History, “Shopping in the Soviet Union”
07 Dec	Lance Winn, Department of Art, “Shopzilla and the Amazon forest! The dialectics of consumption

Recorded lectures for “The Architecture of Shopping”: https://udcapture.udel.edu/2011f/mcst299-010/

2010: Fiber and Fashion

2009: Interpreting Objects

2 September	Getting lost in an object.
9 September	Julian Yates, Department of English, “’Oranges and lemons say….’; Or, nursery rhymes and material culture.”
16 September	Lance Winn, Department of Art, “Frankenstein revisited: Technology and monsters.”
23 September	Martin Brueckner, Department of English, “Map, wars, and object lessons: The cult of cartifacts in 19th century America.”
30 September	Will Scott, Department of History. “The retail revolution: From Main Street to mall, 1900-1960.”
7 October	MEET IN THE MECHANICAL HALL GALLERY. Julie McGee, Curator of African American Art, tour of the current exhibit, “Sound: Print: Record: African American Legacies.” 2009 exhibition
14 October	Ritchie Garrison, Department of History and Winterthur Program in American Material Culture, “Before FedEX and UPS: The Atlantic world and the problem of freight.”
21 October	Joyce Hill Stoner, Department of Art Conservation, “Speaking directly with the artists: Focus on the Wyeths.”
28 October	Lu Ann DeCunzo, Department of Anthropology, “What their garbage tells us about people in the past.”
4 November	Marcy Dinius, Department of English, “Mirror with a memory: The American daguerreotype.”
11 November	MEET AT THE RAVEN PRESS, 2nd floor, Studio Arts Building, near Old College. Ashley Pigford, Department of Art, workshop on type and hand printing.
18 November	Alison Klaum, Department of English, “Pressing flowers: Floral representations in Nineteenth Century print ephemera” and Ginny Garnett, Department of English, “Scrapbooks and SuperFans: May Ward’s tribute to Ellen Terry.”
25 November	No class.
2 December	Anne Krulikowski, Department of History, “Through the Colonial (Revival) doorway: Fact and fancy in the Gilded Age.”
9 December	Amanda Norbutus, Department of Art Conservation, “Preserving the meaning (and materials) of public murals” and Andy Bozanic, Department of History, “From whiskey bottles to railroad nails: Everyday objects and the history of the acoustic guitar.”

2008: Interpreting Objects

Sept 3	Debby Andrews. Center for Material Culture Studies. Course overview
Sept 10	Arwen Mohun. Department of History Dangerous things: The social construction of technology
Sept 17	Lance Winn. Department of Art Scholar rocks, bonsai trees, and crunched up cars: The possibility of the sculpted object
Sept 24	Meet in the Art Conservation lab, 120 Old College Jae Gutierrez. Department of Art Conservation Photographic materials: History, deterioration, and preservation
Oct 1	Margaret Stetz. Mae and Robert Carter Professor of Women’s Studies Clothing and culture in girl’s coming-of-age fiction
Oct 8	Bess Williamson. Graduate student, Department of History Design and life of a food processor: The Cuisinart
Oct 15	Meet at the Raven Press, 2nd floor, Studio Arts Building, near Old College Ashley Pigford. Department of Art Physical pixels: A kinesthetic approach to graphic design
Oct 22	Julian Yates. Department of English A particular fondness for oranges about 1597
Oct 29	Will Scott. Department of History Blue jeans and the transformation of American culture
Nov 5	Annette Giesecke. Department of Foreign Languages and Literature Gardens, urbanism, and utopias in ancient Greece and Rome
Nov 12	Chandra Reedy. Center for Historic Architecture and Design Sand mandalas: Ephemeral material culture in Tibetan life and religion
Nov 19	Meet in the University Gallery in Old College Fritz Nelson. Department of Geography Common Cold: Art and science in polar exploration
Dec 3	Lu Ann DeCunzo. Professor of Anthropology and Early American Culture The interpretation of garbage
Dec 10	Janneken Smucker. Graduate Student, History of American Civilization Amish quilts and the crafting of value