Artefacts of Encounter: Materialising Emotions in Fifty Early Modern Representations [Paperback]

Introduction? 1. Europe and the New World??2. Britain and Ireland??3. The United States of America??4. The Pacific Islands??5. Australasia

'OBrien offers a bold and innovative analysis of meaningful emotional encounters between Europeans and Others across five geographical regions in the early modern era. The emotional dimensions of intercultural encounters, including love, desire, grief and loss, are explored through fifty objects reflecting the anxieties and tensions of the times. Focusing on material culture opens up new understandings of the complex relations and aspirations of colonizers and the people they colonized. This is a groundbreaking must read for any scholar of imperialism, colonialism and intercultural struggle.'

Eve Darian-Smith, University of California, Irvine

Karen OBrien is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in Socio-Legal Studies at the University of Sydney, Australia. Her notable works include Petitioning for Land: The Petitions of First Peoples of Modern British Colonies (2018) and Cursing, Crisis and Customary Knowledge in Early Modern English Townships (2024).

This book presents corresponding images and essays of fifty early modern artefacts of encounters between European explorers and indigenous peoples, addressing relationships and material exchanges that extend beyond this framework to encompass diverse interactions across early modern societies.

The artefacts selected for inclusion in this volume convey early modern visual dialogues, value systems and imagery through paintings, photographs, maps, drawings, buildings, books, icons, sacred sites and entities, dwellings and natural settings. Placing these objects within a comparative and international context, OBrien considers the representation of these interactions as they are expressed through a widel³›