It's Open: "The Kokoon Arts Club: Cleveland Revels!", Kent State University Museum, 19 March 2009

“As the lowly cocoon was the forerunner of the beautiful butterfly, so might they hope that from this small beginning something of beauty should develop and emerge.”

--1931 Kokoon Arts Club Narrative and Roster

The Kokoon Arts Club of Cleveland, Ohio, was founded in 1911 by a small group of commercial artists employed at the Otis Lithograph Company. Meeting first at night in a vacant tailor’s shop, the Club’s founding members pledged themselves to explore the “New Art.” This they did, with gusto and paint.

Club members collaborated to study and make art distinctive from their commercial work, look for display venues and embrace modernism not only as a distinctive form of art but as a way of life. Through a full calendar of members’ shows, sketching excursions, auctions, lectures, theater and musical productions and classes, the Kokoon Arts Club became a fixture of Cleveland’s arts scene throughout the 1910s and 1920s. To fund their activities and pay the mortgage, the Kokooners in 1913 inaugurated an annual bal masque, a bohemian revel that by the 1920s attracted thousands of free-spirited Clevelanders.

The exhibition, curated by Shirley Teresa Wajda, will display the posters and costumes designed and worn by members and guests at these bohemian balls. Costume designs were based on the artistic and theatrical exploration of other places and times related to the ball’s annual theme. With jazz as the chosen music and a program of stunts, guest performances, and other surprises, these revels lasted well into the morning and were sometimes broadcast over radio.

The Kent State University Museum is open Wednesday, Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4:45 p.m.; Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8:45 p.m.; and Sunday from noon to 4:45 p.m. It is closed on Monday and Tuesday.

The Museum is located in Rockwell Hall on the corner of East Main and South Lincoln Streets on the Kent State University campus. Special guided tours are available for groups by reservation. Free on-site motor coach parking is available.

For additional information about the Kent State University Museum, go to www.kent.edu/museum, or call 330-672-3450.

A Quick Post on Inauguration Souvenirs

Well, what can one say about the avalanche of collectibles, memorabilia, souvenirs and (just plain ol') tchotchkes that has swept before it good taste and good sense? The United States IS in a recession, after all, and calls for prudent saving and spending are going unheeded as Americans celebrate the historic inauguration of Barack Obama.

Mainstream media and the blogosphere are awash with commentaries and reports about the high and the low, the good and the bad taste displayed in some of the Inauguration souvenirs: from historically inspired silver and pewter inaugural cups (Jefferson had one!) to kitsch-y commemorative plates. See France 24's Obama Inauguration Webpage for a wonderful rundown of the "Top Ten" souvenirs. (My favorite? The hand-drawn Obama Commemorative Paper Plate, signed by "The Artist," for 10 bucks a pop: the best [and well-drawn] parody of the whole memorabilia enterprise, yet a parody with no ill intent at all. Genius.)

I'll leave the issues of taste, collectability, and value aside, and just make this simple observation: people are celebrating. The American people, and many people around the world, are joyous. Spontaneous celebrations on Election Day, crowds at the Lincoln Memorial yesterday, Inaugural parties in homes and public venues tomorrow: it's all about the purchase, in the word's figurative sense, of "obtaining at the cost of something immaterial, as effort, suffering, sacrifice, etc.," that has made buying souvenirs a basic act not merely of commemoration but of sheer happiness and hope after years of struggle. To be sure, there are those that will try to game the market to acquire collectibles as investment; leave them to their folly that repeats the greediness of those Obama's election has refuted. The fact of that matter is that the great consumer demand for Obama stuff means that profiteering collectors cannot make more wealth off of their investments. In this post-Bush world, that's a comforting and righteous thought.

Yes, my politics are showing. What brought me to tears is seeing Pete Seeger and his grandson, Bruce Springsteen, a choir and the audience sing "This Land Is Your Land" on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial yesterday. And Pete chose to use Woody Guthrie's original lyrics.



Work for peace, folks. Its price may be great, but it's the best collectible of them all.

CFP: The Public Lives of Things

Seventh Annual Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars
Winterthur Museum & Country Estate
Saturday 25 April 2009

The Center for Material Culture Studies at the University of Delaware
invites submissions for papers to be given at the Seventh Annual
Material Culture Symposium for Emerging Scholars.

Focus: Supported in part by a National Endowment for the Humanities
grant for public engagement in the humanities, this year's symposium
encourages graduate students and other emerging scholars to submit
papers that align their object-based research with some aspect of its
potential role in society at large. Within that context, we seek
diversity in topics, chronology, and disciplinary approaches. Travel
grants will be available for all presenters. Disciplines represented
at past symposia include American studies, anthropology, archaeology,
consumer studies, English, history, museum studies and the histories
of art, architecture, design and technology.

Format: The symposium will consist of nine presentations divided into
three panels. Each presentation is limited to twenty minutes and each
panel is followed by comments from established scholars in the field.
There will be two morning sessions and one afternoon session, with
breaks for discussion following each session and over lunch.
Participants will also have the opportunity to tour behind the scenes
at Winterthur's unparalleled collection of early American decorative
arts.

Submissions: The proposal should be no more than 300 words and should
clearly indicate the focus of your object-based research, the critical
approach you take toward that research, and the significance of your
research in the wider community. While the audience for the symposium
consists mainly of university and college faculty and graduate
students, we encourage broader participation. In evaluating proposals,
we will give preference to those papers that keep that broader
audience in mind. Send your proposal, along with a current c.v. (no
more than two pages), to emerging.scholars@gmail.com

Deadline: Proposals must be received by 5 pm on Friday, 30 January
2009. Speakers will be notified of the vetting committee's decision
by late February 2009. Confirmed speakers will be asked to provide
symposium organizers with digital images for use in publicity and are
required to submit a final draft of their papers by 16 March 2009.

Website: http://www.udel.edu/materialculture/emerging_scholars.html

Craft at the Crossroads at ASA

The ASA Material Culture Caucus’s sponsored session will take place on Friday, 17 October 2008, from 12-1:45 PM, at the Albuquerque Convention Center/Jemez.

This roundtable discussion will interrogate ideas around craft and material culture, especially notions of how craft and exchange intersect. Craft requires special skills to produce useful goods. Needlecrafts (knitting, spinning, weaving, embroidery), pottery, jewelry-making, and related cultural products are included in this panel. The notion of exchange is open-ended—as an exchange of money, goods, or ideas. What kinds of trade and exchanges are enabled within craft circles? How do historical accounts of the role of craft help to elucidate the current crafting groundswell in America?

Although the panelists have different specialties, defined by interest in gender, region, time period or ethnicity, there are commonalities. Woven throughout the panelists’ interests are issues of community and of commerce. Although one might imagine a solitary artisan producing wares purely for the individual creator’s enjoyment, one finds a very different tableau in America. There have been vibrant crafting communities, both in historical groups (for example, knitters and weavers of the nineteenth century and in the U.S. craft movements of the 1970s) and in the contemporary crafting “underground” (which is quite aboveground in sites like Etsy.com and funky craft magazines). How does the idea of community get attached to craft? How do these communities form and what do the members exchange? Furthermore, how do notions of identity inform the creation of communities?

That imaginary artisan producing goods only for her own satisfaction is countered by a reality in which crafters are deeply immersed in commerce, trade, and exchange. In the American southwest, Native crafts have given Native cultures an economic boost even while they may re-inscribe old thought patterns about colonial roles. What are the various kinds of craft markets, and how do craft communities contend with market pressures? How have craft communities in the past and in the present use their art to further cultural and political goals? Finally, how might applications of newer theoretical models help answer questions about the intersection of craft and exchange?

Resources for this roundtable may be found at the Caucus's Craft at the Crossroads Resources page.

CFP: Imaging America: Great Lakes ASA Conference, 19-21 March 2009

Please note: deadline extended to October 15, 2008:

Papers and session proposals are invited for the conference "Imaging America," a meeting of the Great Lakes American Studies Association (GLASA), which will be held at the University of Notre Dame, March 19-21, 2009.

“Imaging America” evokes themes that are both fundamental to the development of American Studies as a discipline, and representative of some of the most current research in the field. "Images" can refer both to visual or material representations and to the cultural impressions and expectations embodied in texts, oral traditions, or social performance. "America" is a contested term in American Studies, referring alternately to the United States and the Americas. As a theme for our conference, we hope that "Imaging America" will provide an opportunity for scholars and emerging scholars to enter a discussion about the boundaries, both literal and cultural, of America, as well as about the role of images in our analysis of America.

Proposed papers may consider any aspect and interpretation of the theme "Imaging America" including the following:

"America" conceived and defined as a place, land, nation, and people in terms of visual, cultural, and textual images and practices of mapping, naming, and/or cultural geography.

The transnational dimensions of "America" with expanded attention to the "Americas," both north and south.

Stereotypes, competing cultural images of and from minority communities, including those defined by race, ethnicity, religion, class, gender, sexuality, ability, region.

The diversity of American religious iconography and images.

The production and cultural use of visual images, e.g. photography, art, advertising, and how new imaging technologies transform national, regional, and individual self-understanding and experience.

The ways in which America is "imaged" during political campaigns, especially the 2008 presidential election.

The roles that American images play in defining national subjectivity and determining who "counts" in the national imaginary.

The emotional and affective dimension of American images and icons, e.g. the flag, the soldier, the West.

Please send 200 word abstracts and c.v. by October 15, 2008 (electronic submission is preferred) to Erika Doss, Chair, Department of American Studies, University of Notre Dame, at: doss.2@nd.edu
Submissions may also be mailed to Sandra M. Gustafson, Department of English University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 46556.

Participants will be notified of their acceptance by November 1. Graduate students are encouraged to apply; partial funding for conference travel may be available. The annual conference of the Great Lakes American Studies Association will take place at the University of Notre Dame March 19-21, 2009.

Pre(tty) Fab

When is a prefabricated house a work of art? When it's displayed at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, of course! "Home Delivery: Fabricating the Modern Dwelling" opened 19 July and The New York Times loves it. See the newspaper's coverage here and here. And please view the official exhibition Website (momahomedelivery.org) for a history of house design and prefabrication, videos of the houses being built next to the Museum, and other dandy features.

Material History Review: Call for Papers

Call for Submissions:

Material Culture Review invites submission of new research from the field of
material culture including, cultural history, public history, art history,
geography, archaeology, anthropology, architecture and intangible cultural
heritage. The editors encourage submissions from graduate students and
scholars at any phase of their professional career, professionals and
historians from the art and museum world and from independent scholars with
an interest in material culture.

The editors are currently interested in developing theme issues around the
following topics:
Labour and Material Culture
Religious Material Culture
Needle Work: Knitting, Embroidery and Crocheting
Material Culture of Agriculture
First Nations Material Culture
Intangible Cultural Heritage
Inventorying Culture
Cultural Tourism
The Virtual Museum
Vernacular Architecture

We would welcome expressions of interest in guest editing an issue relating
to any of the aforementioned themes.

MCR is distributed to more than 250 universities, research institutes,
museums and libraries, in thirty countries. Submission information and
guidelines can be found on-line at culture.cbu.ca.

Appel à communications

La Revue de la culture matérielle sollicite des contributions de chercheurs
travaillant à de nouveaux sujets dans le domaine de la culture matérielle,
incluant l’histoire, l’histoire culturelle, l’histoire des institutions,
l’histoire de l’art, la géographie, l’archéologie, l’anthropologie,
l’architecture et le patrimoine culturel immatériel. Les rédacteurs
encouragent les propositions d’articles d’étudiants de troisième cycle et
d’universitaires à toute étape de leur carrière, de professionnels et
d’historiens du monde muséal et artistique, ainsi que de chercheurs
indépendants ayant un intérêt pour la culture matérielle.

Les rédacteurs cherchent actuellement à développer des numéros thématiques
portant sur les sujets suivants :

Culture matérielle et monde du travail
Culture matérielle religieuse
Travaux d’aiguille : Tricot, broderie et crochet
Culture matérielle et agriculture
Culture matérielle des Premières Nations
Patrimoine culturel immatériel
L’inventaire de la culture
Tourisme culturel
Le musée virtuel
Architecture vernaculaire

Nous accueillerons volontiers les propositions des chercheurs désireux de
diriger l’un de ces numéros thématiques susmentionnés à titre de rédacteur
invité.

La Revue de la culture matérielle  est diffusée dans plus de 250
universités, instituts de recherche, musées et bibliothèques, dans trente
pays. Les informations concernant les propositions d’articles et les
instructions aux auteurs sont disponibles sur le site culture.cbu.ca.