Object Colloquia Series (2021-2023)

The Object Colloquia Series that were held in 2021-2022 and 2022-2023 explored the world through the material turn. Each interdisciplinary duo of speakers took one object or product as a point of departure to study and discussed various aspects of Early Modern art, culture and history.

Objects, Commodities and Material Cultures

The book Objects, Commodities and Material Cultures. Exploring Early Modern Materiality Across Disciplines is the culmination of the two-year Object Colloquia Series, which were held from 2021 to 2023. The book was published by Amsterdam University Press in 2025.

More info and order the book

ACSEM Object Colloquium: Blue paper

13 Jun 2023

The 'life' of Dutch blue paper can be seen as a journey through the Early Modern world, starting in the West Indies, passing through the Amsterdam Rasphuis and paper mills in the Zaanstreek, and finally, landing in ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: Sugar

9 May 2023

In this talk, based on the diversity MA course Sugar and the world: How sweets impact globalization and diversity, Enoch Aboh, professor of Linguistics at UvA, will explore how daily commodities (material or ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: Graphometer

11 Apr 2023

What is the relationship between the mysterious ‘general graphometer’ and an eighteenth-century book of female-authored poetry? How can the graphometer’s technical drawing capacities help us to develop a fresh ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: The Muller

14 Mar 2023

We regularly see the muller and the grinding stone depicted in paintings of artist studios, and find it mentioned in inventories of artists from the time, including that of Johannes Vermeer. This is no wonder, for ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: The Ruff

14 Feb 2023

After the sacking of Antwerp in 1585, the Northern Netherlands became the centre of manufacture and trade of high quality linen and of bleaching linen fabrics from at home and abroad. This colloquium will take place ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: A Baluster

8 Dec 2022

At Museum Prinsenhof Delft, Saskia Beranek of Illinois State University will discuss matters of access and agency in relation to portraits of Amalia van Solms and their display across the Dutch Republic. She uses the ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: Bone

13 Dec 2022

Jonas van Tol, assistant professor in Early Modern History at UvA, explores how physical remains of victims of the European wars of religion were recruited for the fight. Using bone relics as a point of departure, he ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: The Table

11 Oct 2022

Invited speaker Catherine Richardson, professor of Early Modern Studies at the University of Kent and author of A Day at Home in Early Modern England, will address the question of what evidence and methods might be ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: 'Geusenbecher'

1 Jun 2022

This year, the annual Amsterdam Centre Lecture doubles as a keynote lecture of the Triennial Conference of the Historians of Netherlandish Art. In his lecture ‘The Image of the Refugee’, Geert Janssen asks what a set ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: Cheese

10 May 2022

Cheese can be seen as an iconic object for the Dutch Republic, as validated by the period’s well-known market scenes and still lifes displayed in museum collections. Depicted in abundance as wheels or as pieces ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: Anatomia Humani Corporis

12 Apr 2022

Lucas van der Deijl and Weixuan Li use digital methodologies to turn Govert Bidloo’s and Gérard de Lairesse’s anatomical atlas Anatomia Humani Corporis (1685) into a web of connections joining the worlds of medicine, ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: The Map and the Monument

8 Mar 2022

Hoe een - gewonnen - zeeslag te vieren? Een monument ter plaatse is geen optie. Een graf, een enorm schilderij, meer schilderijen, stapels pamfletten en prenten, munten, en een harnas houden de herinnering levend aan ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: The Shell

8 Feb 2022

Art historian Hanneke Grootenboer (Radboud University Nijmegen), Dutch literature expert Marrigje Paijmans (UvA) and PhD candidate Cynthia Kok (Yale University / Kress Fellow Leiden) will carry out a philosophical ...
ACSEM Object Colloquium: The VOC Boardroom

12 Oct 2021

Gabri van Tussenbroek will speak about the VOC-room as a historical reconstruction, material authenticity and the importance of material for historical research, as well as the fates of the original artworks once ...

Object Colloquia Series (2021-2023)

Cookie Consent