Industrialisation, Reproducibility, and Religious Class Consciousness in Nineteenth Century British Methodist Objects, The Opening Exhibit Talk for the Victorian House Gallery and Department of History and Political Science special exhibit: Materialist Methodists: Ceramic Highlights from Olivet's Wesleyana Collection
Project Type
Faculty Scholarship
Scholarship Domain(s)
Scholarship of Discovery, Scholarship of Interdisciplinary Integration, Scholarship of Faith Integration
Presentation Type
Presentation
Abstract
This talk will occur at the Victorian House Galley. The Victorian House Gallery is located at: 577 S Main Street Bourbonnais, IL 60914 (815)-939-5137 olivetartexhibitions.com
The relationship between the transcendent world of religious experience and the material world of things is long established. From the veneration of relics by Medieval pilgrims to the modern w.w.j.d. bracelet, the believer’s status within a particular Christian group is often confirmed by the visibly consumed object. For the Christians born of John Wesley’s eighteenth century revival, objects associated with the movement marked them as conspicuously and distinctly Methodist. Coinciding as is it did with Britain’s leadership in the industrial revolution, Methodist objects also established a close association between spiritual revival and the class based consumerist transformations reworking British society. As a result, the creation of Wesley and Methodist objects of consumption place the movement within the larger narrative of the rise of the culture industry and the mechanical reproducibility of the image. Methodist objects, then, are material goods born of immaterial considerations occupying a nexus of religious, social, and industrial change.
This exhibit brings together highlights from Olivet’s extensive collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century Methodist related Staffordshire pottery in order to understand and confront their place within the industrial reproducibility of religious imagery and the changing economy of British belief. Through busts and figurines of John Wesley, commemorative plates, Primitive Methodist teacups, and more, viewers are encouraged to reflect on both the commodification and consumption of religious based identity across eighteenth and nineteenth century British Methodism.
Permission Type
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-No Derivative Works 4.0 License.
Industrialisation, Reproducibility, and Religious Class Consciousness in Nineteenth Century British Methodist Objects, The Opening Exhibit Talk for the Victorian House Gallery and Department of History and Political Science special exhibit: Materialist Methodists: Ceramic Highlights from Olivet's Wesleyana Collection
Other
This talk will occur at the Victorian House Galley. The Victorian House Gallery is located at: 577 S Main Street Bourbonnais, IL 60914 (815)-939-5137 olivetartexhibitions.com
The relationship between the transcendent world of religious experience and the material world of things is long established. From the veneration of relics by Medieval pilgrims to the modern w.w.j.d. bracelet, the believer’s status within a particular Christian group is often confirmed by the visibly consumed object. For the Christians born of John Wesley’s eighteenth century revival, objects associated with the movement marked them as conspicuously and distinctly Methodist. Coinciding as is it did with Britain’s leadership in the industrial revolution, Methodist objects also established a close association between spiritual revival and the class based consumerist transformations reworking British society. As a result, the creation of Wesley and Methodist objects of consumption place the movement within the larger narrative of the rise of the culture industry and the mechanical reproducibility of the image. Methodist objects, then, are material goods born of immaterial considerations occupying a nexus of religious, social, and industrial change.
This exhibit brings together highlights from Olivet’s extensive collection of eighteenth and nineteenth century Methodist related Staffordshire pottery in order to understand and confront their place within the industrial reproducibility of religious imagery and the changing economy of British belief. Through busts and figurines of John Wesley, commemorative plates, Primitive Methodist teacups, and more, viewers are encouraged to reflect on both the commodification and consumption of religious based identity across eighteenth and nineteenth century British Methodism.