Everything is in flux - this ancient wisdom joyfully celebrates its resurgence in the context of globalized world events. Mobility and change are the categorical imperatives of our time. Materials also move restlessly across the globe, as well as through our bodies, continuously being reshaped and thus constituting the material world as we experience it. Based on this observation, a history of knowledge about this material world is aimed at, which focuses not on structures but on material transformations and conversions - spatially, temporally, and substantially. Without succumbing to the temptation of setting physical chemistry with its fundamental building block principle of matter or theoretical configurations of current discourses - material cycles, circulation, metabolism, material flow - as historical a priori, the contributions develop a nature and cultural history that originates from processes and movements.