Below you’ll find a list of the latest graduate course offerings at UD that engage significantly with material culture. Don’t forget to also check out the amazing grant opportunities sponsored by CMCS.
SPRING 2025 COURSES
MCST 610 – Introduction to Theories of Material Culture Studies
Professor DeCunzo and Helton
This seminar introduces graduate students to the theories, practices and methodologies of “material culture studies.” As the investigation of anything that is made or modified by humans, material culture studies assumes that every object can reveal complex stories about past and present people and societies. We therefore study “things” broadly defined, such as household goods, machinery, built structures, art, landscapes, clothing, food and living bodies, as well as processes of production and consumption across space and time. These objects may be actual artifacts or representations—linguistic and visual, as well as material. At the same time, we examine things as material expressions of values, social relationships, political ideologies, economic conditions and cultural change over time. This seminar explores the fundamental principles and theories that have come to inform such investigations; they include (but are not limited to) material concepts; theories of production and consumption; modes of object analysis; methodologies and their application; objects in word and image; gendered objects; technology and manufactured things; lived and built environments.
ENGL – Animal, Vegetable, or Mineral? Multispecies Reading and Writing
Professor Yates
The course will bring together work in overlapping but sometimes disparate fields
of study to ask what focusing on the co-making of different animals (human and otherwise),
plants, and minerals enables us to think, read, write, and do? How do multispecies relations
manifest in and shape our archives / infrastructures? How do they mark our stories, media, and
inform what we broadly call “writing”?
UAPP630 – Methods in Historic Preservation
Professor Morrissey
Introduces students to the critical skills and methodologies employed in the field of historic preservation. Organization is based on the steps used in preservation planning, including survey and identification of historic resources, evaluation of significance, development of historic context, and creation of preservation treatment alternatives.
UAPP618/MCST618 – Traditional Architectural Materials.
Professor Reedy
Overview of composition, fabrication methods, deterioration mechanisms, and preservation needs of stone, ceramic, metal, glass, mortar, plaster, paint, and wood components of traditional architecture from a variety of cultural contexts.
ARTH 619 – Collecting New Worlds
Professor Domínguez Torres
This seminar examines the incorporation of non-European materials, artifacts, and
images (mainly those coming from the Americas) into early modern European artistic
representations and collections. It discusses images of foreign lands and peoples, as
well as the integration of exotic artifacts and materials into early modern collections, and
the implications of such assimilations in the cultural dynamics of the period.
ARTH 635 – Sensing Art and Design
Professor Van Horn
This seminar investigates sensory perception in the material and visual cultures of vast
early America. How did sound, smell, and touch shape making, use, gender, race and
cross-cultural encounters?
EAMC 601 – Introduction to Decorative Arts in America to 1860
Professors Brüeckner, Killian, and Dann Roeber
Development of decorative arts, painting and architecture in America. Principles of
connoisseurship and studies of American and imported objects of art. Collections of the
Winterthur Museum.
EAMC602 – Material Life in America
Professor Brüeckner
American domestic environments and decorative arts within social and economic
contexts of 17th and 18th centuries. Critically assesses how objects contribute to the
study of everyday life in colonial America.
MSST 600 – Introduction to Museums and Public Engagement
Professor Harting
Introduction to the history of museums and examines selected current issues in
museum professional practice. Content may offer discussion of issues in collecting and
exhibition practice, education and audience development, evolving professional ethics,
and museum governance.
UAPP 629 – Historic Preservation Theory and Practice
Professor Reedy
Analysis of the theory underlying historic preservation in the United States and globally,
including its history and evolution over time. Examines the impact of preservation laws
and public policies, and the strategies and regulations for identifying significant
structures, sites, and cultural heritage worthy of preservation.