We need to talk about Things: Recent Episodes
Cambridge University
Sarah Sophia Banks: Money, Medals and a 'Collection of Scraps' Dr Catherine Eagleton (British Museum)
Curiosities from Female Hands Dr Mary Brooks (University of Durham)
Chair: Dr Elizabeth Eger (Kings College London)
The Seeds of Disaster: Relics of La Pérouse Professor Adriana Craciun (University of California, Riverside)
Chair: Professor Jonathan Lamb (Vanderbilt University)
Familiarity Breeds Contempt? 'Everyday' Objects and 'Small Things Forgotten' in the early modern English Household Dr Sara Pennell (University of Roehampton)
Learning Things Dr Melanie Keene (University of Cambridge)
Chair: Dr Melissa Calaresu (University of Cambridge)
In Talking about Things Professor Jordanova picks up on the title of the colloquium and considers some of the ways in which things were treated in words over the long eighteenth century as well as the ways in which items made in that period have been talked about subsequently. Such talk was and has remained extensive, expressing not just the diversity and ubiquity of objects, but their centrality for the construction of identity. So we might consider the genres in which such talk appears, the translation issue - how visual and tactile experiences are put into words, and the multiple layers that accrue when certain things are discussed time after time.