This blog entry celebrates another year of Affective Artefacts, Manchester’s by now iconic and radically interdisciplinary material culture seminar series.

The seminar series has been organised by Stefan Hanß, Sasha Handley, and Rachel Winchcombe on behalf of The Bodies, Emotions and Material Culture Collective and was generously funded by The John Rylands Research Institute and Library. The seminar is hosted in Spring each year, with accompanying skills- and knowledge-exchange sessions as well as reading groups, like The Manchester Material Culture Lab, taking place in Autumn and Winter.

This Spring, Affective Artefacts hosted another fifteen events. This included,

• six public lectures held at The John Rylands Research Institute and Library as well as on campus;
• one online book launch event organised in collaboration with Amsterdam University Press;
• one skill-building and training event on SEM microscopy and the analysis of early modern glass, held in collaboration with the Electron Microscopy Centre, University of Manchester;
• three collections-based handling and engagement workshops at The John Rylands Research Institute and Library;
• one collections-based handling and engagement workshop at Manchester Museum;
• one Early Career Researchers-workshop focusing on practical advice on career development and knowledge exchange on interspecies theory;
• one handling session co-organised with the Archaeology Laboratory;
• a public sniffing tour through The John Rylands Research Institute and Library, exploring the sensory qualities of libraries and research.

We thank all institutions and The John Rylands Research Institute and Library in particular for their support, as well as all speakers for fantastic presentations. Organising this seminar series would not have been possible without the generous support of some amazing people (here in alphabetical order): Alessia Benedetti, Jake Benson, Kayleigh Bradbury, Zsofia Buda, Laura Caradonna, Elisabeth Carr, Michael Faulkner, Elizabeth Gow, Sarah Haigh, Steven Hartshorne, Teruo Hashimoto, Kelly Jones, Ethan Menchinger, John Piprani, Steph Seville, Julianne Simpson, and, above all, a fantastic audience from different disciplines.

The following images give some idea of the events, in chronological order:

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