Modelwork: The Material Culture of Making and Knowing

Models are essential for understanding and shaping the world around us, as they bridge the gap between the tangible and the abstract. This wide-ranging volume examines the interrelationships between a model's material foundations and the otherwise invisible things it gestures toward, highlighting the pivotal role of models in cultural development. Contributions from scholars in the history of science and technology, visual studies, musicology, literary studies, and material culture demonstrate that models serve as invaluable tools across every field of cultural development, both historically and in the present day.

Format: Paperback / softback
Length: 312 pages
Publication date: 04 November 2021
Publisher: University of Minnesota Press

Models are essential tools for expanding human inquiry, whether exploring the inner workings of the human body or the vast expanse of the universe. In this comprehensive volume, scholars from various fields examine the intricate connections between the material foundations of models and the unseen phenomena they gesture towards. From reproductions to interpretive processes and constitutive tools, models play a pivotal role in understanding and shaping the world around us.

By focusing on the material aspects of models, including digital ones that may seem to replace their analogue forebears, these insightful essays ground modeling as a tactile and humanistic endeavor. Contributions from scholars in the history of science and technology, visual studies, musicology, literary studies, and material culture demonstrate that models serve as invaluable tools across every field of cultural development, both historically and in the present day.

Modelwork is unique in highlighting the duality of modeling, a dynamic exchange between imagination and matter. This singular publication showcases how models shape our ability to perceive the world and inspire new ways to transform it.

Contributors to this volume include:

Hilary Bryon, Virginia Tech
Johanna Drucker, UCLA
Seher Erdoğan 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, University of Washington

Weight: 640g
Dimension: 178 x 254 x 21 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9781517910907