ARTH 4856/ 6856 Producing Cloth Cultures (CLASS 4756, VISST 4857)
A. Alexandridis & K. McGowan
W 2:40-4:35
PERMISSION OF INSTRUCTOR REQUIRED
It is a fundamental part of human activity to dress or cover one’s body and environment. While the symbolic significance of such clothing has long been recognized, the activity of producing fabric itself deserves more attention. By this we do not only mean the various techniques and technological devices involved in spinning, weaving, stitching, or sewing, but also the analogical activities and metaphors they entailed. What stories did they tell? How did their connection to writing, remembering, lovemaking, or ruling one’s kingdom, to name but a few examples, play out metaphorically in cloth? And how did fabrics depend on or transform the transmission of techniques, fashions and motives, but also gender, concepts of the body or the built environment?
