Early Modern Global Materials, Materiality, and Material Culture

Dear Colleagues,

Interpretive object-based inquiry has experienced a reinvigoration through the study of materials and materiality using the disciplinary approaches of Material Culture. This “material turn” (Riello, 2022) has opened new ways of thinking about objects and images that focus on the physical properties of thingness (Brown, 2001) and how people form connections to objects and use them as mediators in larger networks (LaTour, 2005). ‘Early Modern Global Materials, Materiality, and Material Culture’ welcomes scholarship that takes as a point of departure Michael Yonan’s assessment that material culture and materiality can be considered “a thing with specific physical characteristics that interact with a range of conceptual ones.” Researchers are invited to consider the richness that is inherent in the material object, through a variety of methodological approaches; recent studies have looked at the global circulation of material objects as cultural interlocutors. An exploration of sensory responses to or interactions with the object, conservation issues that speak to the object’s temporal nature, workshop practice and materials, or the physical uses of the object may be among the questions that probe its material nature, function, and meanings. Art historical submissions that address objects from the global Early Modern period, broadly defined as c. 1400–1800, are welcome.

Dr. Michelle Moseley-Christian
Guest Editor

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Arts is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1400 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.