Modelwork: The Material Culture of Making and Knowing
(Paperback)
Available Formats
Publishing Details
Modelwork: The Material Culture of Making and Knowing
By (Author) Martin Brckner
Edited by Sandy Isenstadt
Edited by Sarah Wasserman
University of Minnesota Press
University of Minnesota Press
3rd January 2022
United States
Classifications
General
Non Fiction
Design, Industrial and commercial arts, illustration
Architectural structure and design
Architecture: professional practice
Gender studies: men and boys
620.0044
Physical Properties
Paperback
312
Width 178mm, Height 254mm, Spine 38mm
Description
How making models allows us to recall what was and to discover what still might be
Whether looking inward to the intricacies of human anatomy or outward to the furthest recesses of the universe, expanding the boundaries of human inquiry depends to a surprisingly large degree on the making of models. In this wide-ranging volume, scholars from diverse fields examine the interrelationships between a models material foundations and the otherwise invisible things it gestures toward, underscoring the pivotal role of models in understanding and shaping the world around us. Whether in the form of reproductions, interpretive processes, or constitutive tools, models may bridge the gap between the tangible and the abstract.
By focusing on the material aspects of models, including the digital ones that would seem to displace their analogue forebears, these insightful essays ground modeling as a tactile and emphatically humanistic endeavor. With contributions from scholars in the history of science and technology, visual studies, musicology, literary studies, and material culture, this book demonstrates that models serve as invaluable tools across every field of cultural development, both historically and in the present day.
Modelwork is unique in calling attention to modelings duality, a dynamic exchange between imagination and matter. This singular publication shows us how models shape our ability to ascertain the surrounding world and to find new ways to transform it.
Contributors: Hilary Bryon, Virginia Tech; Johanna Drucker, UCLA; Seher Erdoan Ford, Temple U; Peter Galison, Harvard U; Lisa Gitelman, New York U; Reed Gochberg, Harvard U; Catherine Newman Howe, Williams College; Christopher J. Lukasik, Purdue U; Martin Scherzinger, New York U; Juliet S. Sperling, U of Washington; Annabel Jane Wharton, Duke U.
Author Bio
Martin Brckner is professor of English and material culture studies at the University of Delaware. He is author or coeditor of several books, most recently The Social Life of Maps in America, 17501860.
Sandy Isenstadt is professor and chair of art history at the University of Delaware and author or coeditor of several books, most recently Electric Light: An Architectural History.
Sarah Wasserman is associate professor of English and material culture studies at the University of Delaware. She is author of The Death of Things: Ephemera and the American Novel (Minnesota, 2020).
