This website has been dormant since the summer of 2008, due to some sudden family expansion, but now it’s time to revive historical object-ivity with updates from my travels and recent work in the flax-paint commodity chain. A good prompt was a recent comment recieved here from a woman who found a “mastere oljeslagaren” in her family history. Sounds mysterious, but the occupation was named something similar in North America: linseed oil crusher. I also kept quite busy last year with conferences around Guelph and abroad, and this semester kicks off a new series of the rural history roundtable.
The roundtable is a florescent discussion of historical objects and rural history at the University of Guelph. In the first talk of 2009, Dr. Catharine Wilson introduced the plow as an object valued for its function more than its fashioning; its main role might have been turning sod for commodity production, but it was also used to create and perpetuate rural masculinity. Plowing matches became a celebration of a man’s physical strength and agricultural skill, and a way to teach boys what Wilson calls a gendered art form.
The series in 2007-2008 included talks by Guelph professors Dr. Doug McCalla and Dr. Susan Nance, visiting scholar and PhD candidate Claiton de Silva, and professors of history Dr. Ruth Sandwell (OISE/Toronto), Dr. Joy Parr (UWO), Dr. Royden Loewen (U Winnipeg), and finall Dr. Marvin McInnis (Queens). Continue reading “The Future of Object-ivity”