""Bundles": Empowered Packets in the Early Modern Atlantic World” is a one-day event, with Cécile Fromont (Yale).
This exploratory workshop gathers an interdisciplinary group of scholars with knowledge and expertise of “early modern bundles”, handcrafted pouches which could bestow their wearers with power or protection. This workshop explores these material objects and their many uses across different cultures and geographies through the early modern Atlantic, with a special emphasis on precolonial Africa and the African diaspora. Sketching comparisons and points of contrast, the papers presented will explore the fluidity and dynamism of bundles through the personal iterations of making, the expertise of the mandingueiros or makers themselves, and the power of these objects to transform and protect the wearer. Such items could protect, heal and even harm, and their abilities in this regard help us map contested notions of knowledge, belief and practice in the early modern world.
Taking place in the Council Room, Strand Campus. If you would like to attend, please email mmor@kcl.ac.uk.