Material Culture Workshop

I have run the Cambridge Material Culture Workshop with Sophia Feist since 2024, taking over from Zara Kesterton and Amelia Hutchinson. The group is a postgraduate-focused space to develop work and share outputs with fellow early career researchers. You can keep up with our latest term cards on instagram.

We have also repeatedly broadened our focus over the years, at first bounded to the early modern, then to pre-1850, and now any period. Any work that pursues object-focused study is welcome.

We view the space as a tool to help shape the Cambridge research culture from the bottom up, and are conscious of the need to give scholars opportunities as well as curate interesting papers. The workshop is keen to promote cross-disciplinary connections, and we regularly host historians, art historians, STS scholars, archaeologists, classicists, literature scholars, conservators, curators, other museum professionals and makers.

Submissions on geographies outside of Europe or on disability history are particularly welcome. Get in touch if you would like to submit a paper.