Professor Akin Ogundiran has inaugurated the Material History Lab at Northwestern. It is an interdisciplinary site for researching and teaching about objects and what they tell us about human experience in history. Its primary foci are research, teaching, collaboration, and public outreach. The lab currently focuses on Africa’s material history over the past 2,500 years, building on findings from various disciplines for a comprehensive understanding.
The lab will investigate how human-made and natural objects influence the formation of the identities of individuals, families, nations, and associations. It will examine how people have created special relationships with objects (e.g., body adornment) to forge relationships with one another and other social entities, including spirit beings. From the beginning of human history, communities have been surrounded by things critical to human safety and environmental sustainability.
Objects of all kinds are fundamental sources for studying the past, the only substantial sources available to study past societies. Until present times, most peoples have not documented their lives in writing but have created a vast array of objects that scholars can use to describe their everyday lives. Thus, objects represent a window to understand the past, present, and future. Their function, symbolic meanings, and manufacture are integral to understanding human evolution.
This article originally ran in the PAS Newsletter, Spring/Winter 2025, Volume 35, Number 2.