As institutions of higher learning across the country grapple with questions about reopening and how to keep students safe, contributor gianofer fields reached back into her archive for a segment from a time when folks could wander freely in the old Memorial Union. Her guest, Dr. William Moore was a professor in the History Department at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. This segment was recorded when Material Culture was fairly new to fields and she found herself unable to focus on a single object for an upcoming project. Maybe it was a paper…Who knows? It was a while ago and she was stressed out! In this edition of Radio Chipstone, Dr. Moore empathizes and suggests our contributor start looking at objects that inspire more questions than answers.
About the Host:
gianofer (JON nah fer) fields is an Art Historian and Material Culture contributor and curates the Radio Chipstone series. The project is hosted by the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and funded by the Chipstone Foundation; a decorative arts foundation whose mission is preserving and interpreting their collection, as well as stimulating research and education in the decorative arts.
About the Guest:
Dr. William D. Moore is Director of the American & New England Studies Program and is an Associate Professor of Material Culture at Boston University. His research areas include: American material culture; cultural landscape studies; vernacular architecture; American folk art; American Fraternalism; the Shakers and American culture. At the time of this recording, he was a professor in the History Department at the University of North Carolina – Wilmington.
Image: William D. Moore. Image courtesy of Dr. Moore and gianofer fields.
This segment comes from the Radio Chipstone Archives of WUWM Milwaukee Public Radio. See here.