This collaborative research network connects scholars from a range of disciplines working on the material culture and emotions of the medieval and early modern periods.  Recent work in the humanities has begun to recognise how objects can play an important part in emotional practices and the formation of identity and community, and conversely how the history of emotions provides a valuable theoretical framework for understanding the materiality of the past.  This network draws upon existing intellectual connections between scholars in Melbourne and Manchester, and seeks to develop new approaches through shared projects and an innovative exploration of an intellectual issue that is ripe for new scholarship.

 

We will explore how objects are imbued with and gather emotional power, and how they generate and normalize emotional practices on the part of individual subjects, groups and communities. This multi-disciplinary project adds an important historical dimension to contemporary theoretical work on objects and the relationships between humans and material culture; it will work with the rich cultural collections at our respective universities and libraries, galleries and museums in Manchester and Melbourne.