On 8 June 2022 at 5 pm the IMAREAL will hold the fourth lecture in their series "Materielle Welten" ("Material Worlds"). Daniel L. Smail (Harvard University) will talk about household containers.

Containers are a silent presence in every human society. Depending on what one calls a container, this has been true since the origins of the species some 200,000 years ago. In the vast repertoire of humanity's material culture, containers are especially interesting as objects because of the role they play as entropy devices, either inhibiting or sometimes accelerating the natural tendency of things toward dispersal and decay. This talk explores the ecological role of the container with particular reference to containers that appear in archival records from two later medieval cities, where the container can be seen as a signifier of social distinction and as a target of coercive practices.

Vortragssprache / Lecture Language: English

Daniel Lord Smail is a professor of History at Harvard University. His work has explored the social and cultural history of the cities of Mediterranean Europe, with a focus on Marseille in the later Middle Ages. His current research approaches transformations in the material culture of the later Middle Ages using household inventories and inventories of debt recovery from Lucca and Marseille.

The lecture will take place online via Zoom. Afterwards, we invite you to continue the dialogue in the virtual salon (via wonder.me).