ARTH 380 Histories of Art History: Craft Theory and Discourse

• Wednesdays, 2:45-5:30 pm
• Instructor: Victoria Macbeath

Craft is a process, a concept, and – as Glenn Adamson reminds us – a way of being within society. How craft objects are made, who makes them, where they are made, and what they are made from are deeply embedded in social, political, and aesthetic narratives. During the last three decades craft scholarship has grown exponentially, creating a field of study that invites us to consider how craft discourses and craft objects have shaped one another since the nineteenth century Arts and Crafts Movement through the studio craft movement and into the present day. Terms such as Neo-Craft, Naked Craft, Sloppy Craft, Fine Craft, Critical Craft, and Craftivism continue to shape analyses of ongoing and historical craft productions. By turning to historical texts and recent craft literature, this course will examine these dynamics over the last one and a half centuries.

Guided each week by select keywords (such as labour, care, and folklore), this course will engage with craft writing and making to consider how the discourses and theories around craft narrate a variety of tensions in the field. For example, between Indigenous and settler communities, designers and makers, professionalism and amateurism, function and concept, and the local and global. In this course students will gain fundamental skills in critical reading and writing about crafted objects.