Welcome! This website is an assignment for a course titled Material Culture at the University of Toronto, and is based on my essay titled, "The Coffee Cup: A Locus of Meaning".

The following information focuses on the coffee cup, an object of everyday use which is also a locus of meaning conveying biography and cultural knowledge. That the cup is essential for the drinking of coffee seems hardly worth mentioning--the cup is the receptacle for the liquid, without it drinking coffee would be impossible. Yet while coffee and coffeehouses have been a focus of interest since their advent in Europe some 350 years ago, the coffee cup has received scant attention from cultural observers, historians, essayists, or even coffee drinkers themselves. This website is intended to redress this balance.

Questions? Comments? Contact me:

Sarah Amato
Graduate Student
Department of History
University of Toronto
saramato@hotmail.com
Updated April 24, 2001

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