Many people, when asked how they learned to sew—or knit, weave, crochet, embroider, quilt, or otherwise make or embellish textiles—answer that they were taught by a relative, friend, or formal tutor. This personal transmission of craft skills was as true historically as in the present day, whether through families, guilds, academies, technical schools, industries, or other institutions that fostered face-to-face guidance. However, some people, for reasons of geographic, generational, occupational, socio-economic, or other life circumstance, may not have had access to personal instruction while wanting (or needing) to learn these skills. Enterprising craftspeople sought to fill these gaps by using the communications media of their historical era to disseminate craft instruction, whether through hand-written charts and guides, print culture, television broadcasts, craft kits, or social media. Still others have used textiles themselves, whether singular examples or extensive collections, as models from which students might learn.
The Teaching Textiles symposium will explore this nexus of skill, education, communication, enterprise, and collecting. Because textiles are used so broadly— from the necessities of shelter, such as clothing, fabric structures, and bedding; to luxuries, such as ornamental embroidery for embellishing the home or body; to cultural symbols, such as religious vestments—the dissemination of their making also ranges broadly, across place and time. We welcome proposals for case studies, comparisons, or thematic approaches from across history and around the globe.
Symposium presentations might address any (or combinations) of the following questions, or explore other avenues related to the main theme of the historical transmission of textile skills:
*how were textile skills transmitted in particular times, places, societies, and groups?
*what tools, machines, and materials were necessary to teach textiles in different times and places?
*how were the communications technologies of particular eras harnessed to disseminate the instruction of textiles?
*how were specific textiles chosen and textile collections amassed to provide exemplars for students?
*how did “teachers” (eg, family members, authors, artists and artisans, television presenters, etc) derive their authority and how did they benefit from sharing it?
*how was the audience for textile instruction envisioned (in terms of gender, age, class, race, etc) and how might these students have used these skills (eg, as a livelihood, as a hobby, etc) in different periods and places?
*what types of ‘literacy’ (eg, reading literacy, visual literacy, underlying understanding of textile production, etc) were necessary for successful use of these forms of instruction?
Please submit proposals of c. 250 words for papers/presentations along with a 1-2 page c.v.. We are also open to proposals for demonstrations or short workshops that use “hands on” approaches to convey the history of teaching textiles. A publication from this event is under discussion, so our preference is for new research that has not been published previously or is already committed to other publications; however, we will consider all proposals that offer unique contributions to the event itself.
Please send proposals (or queries about the event) to Prof. Marina Moskowitz at mmoskowitz@wisc.edu by 23 September 2019; responses will be sent by 1 October.
