Last year myself,
Emmett O'Keeffe and
Terry O'Hagan launched and organised an international, inter-disciplinary conference focused on theoretical approaches to material culture (
TAT 2009).
Following on from the conference a number of delegates expressed an interest in continuing the conference in a different venue in 2010. A competition was run and the University of Michigan proposal was successful. An international committee has been set up alongside the local committee and I was delighted to receive the CFP (click the read more link to see it) for
TAT 2010 last week.
We have recently launched the TAT t-shirt shop here. Having been to many conferences where you could take away a little memory to wear on site, to the pub or wherever else you enjoy being gently derided for your geeky fashion sense, we thought it might be nice to do the same for TAT.
We thought about having the t-shirts on sale during the conference but we simply didn't have the money to buy in a load of them on the off-chance they would sell. The alternative was an excellent site called Zazzle.com that allows participants (and anyone else) who want a t-shirt before or after the conference to order theirs in whatever size, shape or colour they prefer.
The organisers and volunteers will be sporting their own snazzy designs during the three-day event. We'll see how often they're worn after that...
The TAT programme has now been confirmed and launched. Preparations are well under way with the next phase being selection of chairs for the various sessions.
We are also working on putting together a decent social schedule to make sure people learn about more than just material culture when they come to Dublin!
Download the programme here and remember to log on to the TAT website and register asap.
At the moment I am heavily involved, along with my colleagues Emmett O'Keeffe and Terry O'Hagan in the organisation of TAT 2009. TAT, or to give it its full title Thinking About Things: Interdisciplinary Futures in Material Culture, was a response by the three of us to a call for proposals for conference funding from the UCD Graduate School of Arts and Celtic Studies. All three of us being perennial volunteers and always looking for something to distract attention from actual PhD work, we were immediately on the look out for some ideas.
With a little help along the way from Dr. Graeme Warren and Dr. Jo Bruck we realised there was an existing college research strand on material culture. A subject central to archaeology but also lots of other disciplines. We decided to go with it, making it a truly inter-disciplinary effort (I don't think the website even mentions archaeology).
Preparations are well under way and in fact we are meeting to go through the submitted abstracts tomorrow. Its a big job because we have received about double the number we expected, from all across Europe and America. Hopefully the programme will be up soon. In the meantime make sure you register and come to Dublin from the 5th to the 7th May 2009!
