Set of sixty miniature heads used in phrenology, c.1800s, Science Museum, London.

Welcome to UNCW Material Culture

UNCW Material Culture is a campus-wide initiative designed to foster the study of material culture among faculty, students, and the Wilmington community. Material culture studies is an interdisciplinary field and scholarly method that acknowledges the roles of objects in constituting and transforming societies. This initiative is sponsored by an Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series (IRSS) grant from UNCW’s Office of Research, Innovation and Commercialization.

Join Our Year-Long Seminar Series

Please join our seminar series “The Material Culture of Racial Justice and Healthcare Equity.” This year-long seminar engages the ways objects construct and deconstruct racial justice (Fall 2021) and healthcare equity (Spring 2022) to better understand how our past and present relationships with objects form our worldviews, politics, medicines, media, and religious practices.

Seminar activities will include public talks with leading scholars in the field, community engagement events, and “Lunch and Learn” networking opportunities for UNCW faculty. We will also provide resources to help you find funding for your material culture research.