At last night’s session on Material Culture, we enjoyed two fantastic papers by Anne F. Harris (DePauw University, Art History) and Emily Kirkegaard (Notre Dame, MI). We were shaken out of our myopic anthropocentrism by both speakers’ critical engagement with how objects matter. Many thanks to Anne and Emily for their enthusiastic willingness to share their research. For those who would like to learn more about Professor Harris’s contributions to the ongoing conversation on eco-criticism in medieval studies, check out her blog. Also be on the lookout for her forthcoming article in Journal of Medieval and Early Modern Studies (Winter 2014), “Sacred Object/Folk Object: the Roodscreen of the Chapel St. Fiacre in Le Faoüet (Brittany).”
We look forward to our next session on January 16 on Violent Speech with Irina Dumitrescu (Southern Methodist University, English) and Melissa Vise (Northwestern University, History). We hope to see you there!