“I’ve Got a Thing,” the first season of The Premodern Podcast, is a series of conversations about the objects, documents, and stories that premodernists just can’t stop thinking about. In this episode, Lydia Garver introduces us to Christopher Ludwick and his porcelain bowl and makes an argument for why archaeologists should be opposed to time travel.

Dr. Lydia Garver is the Associate Director of the Center for Premodern Studies. She is a historical archaeologist by training and has worked primarily on Pennsylvania German sites. She is interviewed by Juliette Cherbuliez, Professor of French and Director of the Center for Premodern Studies, at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities.

Three quick notes from Lydia: 1) In this episode, when I mention printed ceramics, I say screen -printed which perhaps seemed accessible at the time, but isn’t representative of the production process which was a transfer printing technique. Here is a brief overview of the process from the National Park Service. 2.) I intentionally don’t want to include images of porcelain bowls with this episode since we don’t know what Ludwick’s looked like, but a cookie board believed to be associated with Christopher Ludwick is in the collection of the Museum of the American Revolution. The object notes say the board was donated by Ludwick’s descendants. The Rush biography does not indicate that Ludwick had any children, but perhaps it was donated by members of Ludwick's extended family. 3) Apologies to folks who know things about naval history and terminology for my likely flagrant misuse of the phrase “merchant marine.”

Link to Christopher Ludwick’s Biography by Dr. Benjamin Rush “An Account of the Life and Character of Christopher Ludwick, Late Citizen of Philadelphia, and Baker-General of the Army of the United States During the Revolutionary War  Ludwick’s bowl is featured on pages 16 and 17.

Link to Transcript for this Episode

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Our theme music is “Dangerous Diamonds” by Rogue Valley written by Chris Koza.

Our intermission music is "Summer is icumen in" by Anya Badaldavood.

This episode was produced by Moinak Choudhury.

Transcript by Karen Soto

The conversations on this podcast represent the framing and views of individual scholars which are not necessarily shared by the Center for Premodern Studies, the University of Minnesota, and their staff and affiliates.