The Material Body: An Interdisciplinary Study Using History and Archaeology

This British Academy-funded project sought to develop new ways of studying the body in the post-medieval past by facilitating conversations and collaborative research between archaeologists and historians.

The Material Body research team, led by Dr Lizzy Craig-Atkins and Prof Karen Harvey (University of Birmingham) drawn on the insights of the two disciplines of Archaeology and History to explore an interdisciplinary approach to bodies in the 'long early modern' or ‘post-medieval’ past. Embodiment transcended the physical body, therefore our approach seeks to explore the body as both a physical and material object, and one made through the lived experience of society and culture. Our project seeks to better understand the body and its role in the human past by bringing together historians of the body with archaeologists who work with the remains of historic bodies.

In a series of workshops we have brought together scholars from the disciplines of Archaeology and History to work collaboratively with historical documents and osteoarchaeological material from the collections of the University of Sheffield. We have produced several reports on potential areas of interdisciplinary research, organised a project conference and will conclude the project with an edited volume featuring a range of papers including several collaborations between archaeologists and historians generated through the project itself.  

2018 Conference

The conference for the project, ‘The Material Body, 1500-1900: A Conference of Archaeologists and Historians’, took place between 4-5 July 2018 at the University of Birmingham. Themes included the body as material culture, bodily display, bodily practices, health in the city and plastic bodies.

Publication

The Material Body project will be published by Manchester University Press in a forthcoming edited volume.