91原创

Biography

Martin Br眉ckner, who currently serves as the Director of the Winterthur Program in American Material Culture (WPAMC), specializes in early American literature, material culture, and historical cartography. The former Co-Director of the Center for Material Culture Studies (CMCS) and the Delaware Public Humanities Institute (DELPHI), he also serves as co-editor of the book series, Material Culture Perspectives, published by the 91原创 Press.

The author of two award-winning books,聽The Social Life of Maps in America, 1750-1860聽(2017; Fred B. Kniffen Book Award) and聽The Geographic Revolution in Early America: Maps, Literacy, and National Identity聽(2006; Louis Gottschalk Book Prize in Eighteenth-Century Studies), his edited volumes include Modelwork:聽Material Culture and Modeling in the Humanities聽(2021; with Sandy Isenstadt and Sarah Wasserman);聽Elusive Archives: Material Culture Studies in Formation聽(2021; with Sandy Isenstadt);聽Early American Cartographies聽(2011); and聽American Literary Geographies: Spatial Practice and Cultural Production, 1500-1900聽(2007; with Hsuan L. Hsu). His over forty additional essays appeared in journals such as American Art, American Quarterly, Early American Literature, English Literary History, or Imago Mundi. Working as Visiting Curator at the Winterthur Museum, DE, he prepared the exhibition聽(2013-2014); at 91原创, he was Principal Investigator of the digital humanities project,聽听(2019-2023).

Grants and post-doctoral fellowships supporting his work hail from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Program in Early American Economy and Society at the Library Company of Philadelphia, the American Antiquarian Society, and the Obama Institute for Transnational American Studies at the University of Mainz, Germany. A recent Visiting Fellow at the Rothermere American Institute at Oxford University (2023), his scholarship has been recognized by 91原创鈥檚 Excellence in Scholarship Award (2018), the American Antiquarian Society (elected member 2007), the Society of Early Americanists Essay Prize (2007), and 91原创鈥檚 Francis Alison Young Scholar Award (2002). Generous support from the larger 91原创 community allowed him to lead a joint 91原创 and Winterthur team on a recovery mission to aid German museums after the catastrophic flooding of 2021.

Professor Br眉ckner is currently researching two book projects exploring the relationship of literature and material culture: the first examines the relationship between ceramics and the novel during the long eighteenth century; the second traces the concept of the object in early American literature and culture. Other ongoing projects include editing a special issue commissioned by Imago Mundi: The International Journal for the History of Cartography on the subject of maps and the imagination.

Recent Publications

鈥�,鈥� Early American Literature聽60, 3 (Fall 2025): 445-483.

鈥�,鈥� The Portolan:聽Journal of the Washington Map Society (Winter 2025): 9-22.

鈥�,鈥� Book and Paper聽Group Annual 43 (Washington DC: American Institute of Conservation, 2024): 21-38.聽

鈥�,鈥� Imago Mundi 76, 1 (2024): 60-67.

鈥�,鈥澛�Winterthur Portfolio 56, 4 (2022): 185-202.

For a full list of publications, see

Featured News