11:29 a.m., March 28, 2007--Cigars in American culture, baby books, Victorian taxidermy and the aesthetics of Jewish table settings are among the varied topics being presented at UD's fifth Annual Material Culture_Symposium for Emerging Scholars. The event, which includes audience discussion sessions, is scheduled from 8 a.m.-5 p.m., Saturday, April 14, in the Copeland Lecture Hall of Winterthur Museum and Country Estate. It is free and open to the public.

The symposium attracts graduate scholars from across the U.S. and abroad who are invited to present their research on material culture in a setting that promotes interdisciplinary dialogue and encourages discussion. Internationally recognized leaders in the field donate their time for commentaries and mentoring. Those who study material culture look at the material world and people's cultural beliefs, values, ideas and assumptions as expressed in the things they create, use and see.

The annual symposium, organized entirely by UD graduate students, provides emerging scholars--graduate students and recent Ph.D.s from a variety of academic disciplines, and museum professionals--with a venue for interdisciplinary dialogue centering on material culture. Participants work and study in the fields of anthropology, art history, historical archeology, history and American studies.

Audience discussion periods will be led David Brody, associate professor of art and design studies at Parsons the New School for Design; Lynn Meskell, professor of social and cultural anthropology at Stanford University; and Charles Hummel, curator emeritus of Winterthur Museum and Country Estate.

Susan Strasser, UD professor of history and senior resident scholar at the Hagley Museum and Library's Center for the History of Business, Technology and Society, will deliver the keynote address. Strasser is a widely recognized historian of consumer culture.

The event is supported by UD's Center for Material Culture Studies, Winterthur Museum and Garden Estate, the UD departments of art history, history, English and fashion and apparel studies; the UD Alumni Association and the Office of Academic Programs. For more information, go to [www.udel.edu/materialculture/] and click on Emerging Scholars Symposium.