21A.501
Art, Craft, Science
Examines how people learn, practice, and evaluate traditional and contemporary craft techniques. Social science theories of design, embodiment, apprenticeship learning, skill, labor, expertise, and tacit knowledge are used to explore distinctions among art, craft, and science. Also discusses the commoditization of craft into market goods, collectible art, and tourism industries. Ethnographic and historical case studies include textiles, Shaker furniture, glassblowing, quilting, cheesemaking, industrial design, home and professional cooking, factory and laboratory work, CAD/CAM. Demonstrations, optional field trips, and/or hands-on craft projects may be included. Students taking graduate version complete additional assignments.
Fall 2024
This course examines how people learn, practice, and evaluate traditional and contemporary craft techniques. Social science theories of design, embodiment, apprenticeship learning, skill, labor, expertise, and tacit knowledge are used to explore distinctions among art, craft, and science. It also discusses the commoditization of craft into market goods, collectible art, and tourism industries. Ethnographic and historical case studies include textiles, Shaker furniture, glassblowing, quilting, cheesemaking, industrial design, home and professional cooking, factory and laboratory work, and CAD/CAM. Demonstrations, optional field trips, and/or hands-on craft projects may be included.
Readings
- ———. “Science.” In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society , revised edition. Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780195204698.
- ———. “Technology.” In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society , revised edition. Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN: 9780195204698.
- Optional reading
- White, Louellyn. “White Power and the Performance of Assimilation: Lincoln Institute and Carlisle Indian School.” Chapter 5 in Carlisle Indian Industrial School: Indigenous Histories, Memories, and Reclamations. Edited by Jacqueline Fear-Segal and Susan D. Rose. University of Nebraska Press, 2018. ISBN: 9781496207692.
- Braverman, Harry. “The Primary Effects of Scientific Management.” Chapter 5 in Labor and Monopoly Capitalism: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century: 25th Anniversary Edition . Monthly Review Press, 1998. ISBN: 9780853459408.
- Renfrew, Colin, Paul Bahn, and Elizabeth DeMarrais. “What Is Left? The Variety of the Evidence." Chapter 2 in Archaeology Essentials: Theories, Methods, and Practices, fifth edition. Thames & Hudson, 2024. ISBN: 9780500845295.
- Knappett, Carl. “Materiality in Archaeological Theory.” In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, second edition. Edited by Claire Smith. Springer, 2020. ISBN: 9783030300166.
- Optional viewing
- Rieppel, Lukas. “Bringing Dinosaurs Back to Life.” Chapter 6 in Assembling the Dinosaur: Fossil Hunters, Tycoons, and the Making of a Spectacle . Harvard University Press, 2019. ISBN: 9780674737587.
- St. Clair, Kassia. Selections from The Secret Lives of Color . Penguin Books, 2017. ISBN: 9780143131144.
- Collins, H.M. “What is Tacit Knowledge?” Chapter 7 in The Practice Turn in Contemporary Theory . Edited by Theodore R. Schatzki, Karin Knorr-Cetina, and Eike von Savigny. Routledge, 2000. ISBN: 9780415228145.
- LOOK: Example of a house from Cairo showing how windows are used with wooden screens (mashrabiyya):
- LISTEN (AND LOOK): Damascene reception hall featuring wooden interiors and stucco–stained glass windows:
- WATCH: Old documentary of the production process of such windows in Yemen:
- Sennett, Richard. “Expressive Instructions.” Chapter 6 in The Craftsman . Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN: 9780300151190.
- Tulloch, Carole. “There’s No Place Like Home: Home Dressmaking and Creativity in the Jamaican Community of the 1940s to the 1960s.” Chapter 6 in The Culture of Sewing: Gender, Consumption and Home Dressmaking . Berg Publishers, 1999. ISBN: 9781859732083.
- Bryan-Wilson, Julia, Liz Collins, et al. “The Politics of Craft: A Roundtable.” Chapter 76 in The Craft Reader . Edited by Glenn Adamson. Bloomsbury Academic, 2010. ISBN: 9781847883032.
Spring 2013
Topics
- Introduction
- From artisan to technician: The labor and value of craftwork before and after the Industrial Revolution
- The craft of scientific work
- Knowing and doing: Tools and technology
- Embodied practice and acquired skill
- Student presentations
Readings
- [Adamson] = Adamson, Glenn, ed. The Craft Reader . Bloomsbury Academic, 2010. ISBN: 9781847883032.
- ———. “Technology.” In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society . Oxford University Press, 1985. ISBN: 9780195204698.
- [Adamson] Chapter 6: “On the Economy of Machines and Manufactures.”
- [Adamson] Chapter 8: de Tocquevelle, Alexis. “How an Aristocracy may Emerge from Industry.” From Democracy in America .
- [Adamson] Chapter 10: Marx, Karl. “Capital.” (excerpts)
- [Adamson] Chapter 11: Braverman, Harry. “The Primary Effects of Scientific Management.” From Labor and Monopoly Capitalism: The Degradation of Work in the Twentieth Century .
- Metcalf, Bruce. “Replacing the Myth of Modernism.” Chapter 1 in NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts. Edited by Sandra Alfoldy. Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 2008. ISBN: 9780919616479.
- [Adamson] Chapter 20: Morris, William. “The Revival of Handicraft.”
- [Adamson] Chapter 68: Gropius, Walter, and László Moholy-Nagy. “The Manifesto of the Bauhaus” and “Education and the Bauhaus.”
- [Adamson] Chapter 33: Ferragamo, Salvatore. “The Shoemaker of Dreams.”
- [Adamson] Chapter 43: Pye, David. “The Nature and Art of Workmanship.”
- Rees, David. “Using a Single-Blade Pocket Sharpener.” Chapter 5 in How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical and Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening ." Melville House Publishing, 2013. ISBN: 9781612193267.
- ———. “Psychological Risks Associated with Pencil Sharpening: Assessment and Coping Strategies.” Chapter 12 in How to Sharpen Pencils: A Practical and Theoretical Treatise on the Artisanal Craft of Pencil Sharpening . Melville House Publishing, 2013. ISBN: 9781612193267.
- [Adamson] Chapter 60: Parker, Rozsika. “The Creation of Femininity.” From The Subversive Stitch: Embroidery and the Making of the Feminine .
- [Adamson] Chapter 58: Gell, Alfred. “The Enchantment of Technology and the Technology of Enchantment.”
- [Adamson] Chapter 40: McCullough, Malcolm. “Abstracting Craft: The Practiced Digital Hand.”
- Risatti, Howard. “Technical Knowledge and Technical Manual Skill.” Chapter 10 in A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression . University of North Carolina Press, 2013. ISBN: 9781469600901.
- ———. “Hand and Body in Relation to Craft.” Chapter 11 in A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression . University of North Carolina Press, 2013. ISBN: 9781469600901.
- Richards, Ellen S. “Housekeeping in the Twentieth Century.” American Kitchen Magazine 12 (1900): 203–7.
- ———. “Practice, Person, Social World.” Chapter 2 in Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation . Cambridge University Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780521423748.
- Ulin, Robert C. “Invention as Cultural Capital.” Chapter 2 in Vintages and Traditions: An Ethnohistory of Southwest French Wine Cooperatives . Smithsonian Institution Press, 1996. ISBN: 9781560986270.
- [Adamson] Chapter 36: Doris, David T. “Destiny World: Textile Casualties in Southern Nigeria.”
- [Adamson] Chapter 61: Tulloch, Carole. “There’s No Place Like Home: Home Dressmaking and Creativity in the Jamaican Community of the 1940s to the 1960s.”
- Bezaitis, Maria, and Rick E. Robinson. “Valuable to Values: How ‘User Research’ Ought to Change.” Chapter 13 in Design Anthropology: Object Culture in the 21st Century . Edited by Alison J. Clarke. Springer Vienna Architecture, 2010. ISBN: 9783709102336.
- Papanek, Victor. “The Best Designers in the World?” Chapter 11 in The Green Imperative: Ecology and Ethics in Design and Architecture . Thames & Hudson, 1995. ISBN: 9780500278468.
- [Paxson] Chapter 1: American Artisanl.
- [Paxson] Chapter 2: Ecologies of Production.
- [Paxson] Chapter 4: Traditions of Invention.
- [Paxson] Chapter 5: The Art and Science of Craft.
- Guest lecturer: Alessandro Angelini, PhD Candidate in Anthropology, The Graduate Center, City University of New York
- Weschler, Lawrence. “Inhaling the Spore.” Part 1 in Mr. Wilson’s Cabinet of Wonder: Pronged Ants, Horned Humans, Mice on Toast, and Other Marvels of Jurassic Technology . Vintage Books, 1996. ISBN: 9780679764892.
- hooks, bell. “An Aesthetic of Blackness: Strange and Oppositional.” In The Object of Labor: Art, Cloth, and Cultural Production . Edited by Joan Livingstone and John Ploof. MIT Press, 2007. ISBN: 9780262122900.
- Screening: Excerpts from Handmade Nation. Directed by Faythe Levine. Color, 90 min. 2009.
- Janoff, Callie. “The Church of Craft: Making Our Own Religion.” In Handmade Nation: The Rise of DIY, Art, Craft, and Design . Edited by Faythe Levine and Cortney Heimerl. Princeton Architectural Press, 2008. ISBN: 9781568987873.
- Berger, Shoshana, and Grace Hawthorne. “A Mini Manifesto (with Apologies to William Blake).” In ReadyMade: How to Make {Almost} Everything: A Do-It-Yourself Primer . Potter Style, 2005. ISBN: 9781400081073.
- Lupton, Ellen. “Foreword.” In D.I.Y. Design It Yourself . Edited by Ellen Lupton. Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. ISBN: 9781568985527.
- ———. “Why D.I.Y.?” In D.I.Y. Design It Yourself . Edited by Ellen Lupton. Princeton Architectural Press, 2006. ISBN: 9781568985527.
- Carlson, Bernard W. “Building Thomas Edison’s Laboratory at West Orange, New Jersey: A Case Study in Using Craft Knowledge for Technological Invention, 1886–1888.” History and Technology 13 (1991): 150–67.
- McBrinn, Joseph. “Handmade Identity: Crafting Design in Ireland from Partition to the Troubles.” Chapter 7 in NeoCraft: Modernity and the Crafts . Edited by Sandra Alfoldy. Press of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design, 2008. ISBN: 9780919616479.
- Seymour, John. Forgotten Household Crafts: A Portrait of the Way We Once Lived . Knopf, 1987. ISBN: 9780394558301.
- Adamson, Glenn, ed. The Craft Reader . Bloomsbury Academic, 2010. ISBN: 9781847883032.
Prerequisites & course information
Same subject as STS.074[J] Prereq: None Acad Year 2027-2028: Not offered Acad Year 2028-2029: U (Fall) 3-0-9 units. HASS-S Credit cannot also be received for 21A.509[J] , STS.474[J]
Sources
- Course catalogue ↗2026–2027
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Fall 2024
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OpenCourseWare ↗Spring 2013
- MIT OCW calendar ↗
- MIT OCW readings ↗
- MIT OCW syllabus ↗
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.
- Historical MIT OpenCourseWare offering. Named reading entries and schedule topics are automatically extracted from the linked source pages.