Art, Craft, Science

Readings

Session 1: Course introduction and overview

• Hu, Charlotte. “Why Writing by Hand is Better for Memory and Learning.” Scientific American, February 21, 2024.
• Rogers, William B. Objects and Plan of an Institute of Technology including a Society of Arts, a Museum of Arts, and a School of Industrial Science; Proposed to be Established in Boston, second edition. John Wilson and Son, 1861. [Preview with Google Books]

Session 2: Genealogies of Art, Craft, Science (I)

Readings 

• Williams, Raymond. “Art.” In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society, revised edition. Oxford University Press, 2014. ISBN: ‎9780195204698. [Preview with Google Books]
• ———. “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. 
• Risatti, Howard. “Part 1: Practical-Functional Arts and the Uniqueness of Craft: Questions About Terminology.” In A Theory of Craft: Function and Aesthetic Expression. ReadHowYouWant.com, Limited, 2009, pp. 1–15. ISBN: ‎9781458762009. [Preview with Google Books]
• Dean, Carolyn. “The Trouble with (the Term) Art.” Art Journal 65, no. 2 (2006): 24–32.
• Epstein, S.R. “Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Pre-Industrial Europe.” Chapter 2 in Guilds, Innovation and the European Economy, 1400–1800. Edited by S.R. Epstein and Maarten Prak. Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 52–63. ISBN: 9781139471077. [Preview with Google Books]

Audio

• “Science and the Supernatural in the 17th Century.” July 29, 2015. Science History Institute Museum and Library.

Optional reading

• Callon, Michel. “Four Models for the Dynamics of Science.” Chapter 2 in Handbook of Science and Technology Studies. Edited by Sheila Jasanoff, Gerald E. Markle, et al. Sage Publications, 2001. ISBN: 9781452213637. [Preview with Google Books]

Session 3: Genealogies of Art, Craft, Science (II)

• Epstein, S.R. “Craft Guilds, Apprenticeship, and Technological Change in Pre-Industrial Europe.” Chapter 2 in Guilds, Innovation and the European Economy, 1400–1800. Edited by S.R. Epstein and Maarten Prak. Cambridge University Press, 2008, pp. 63–76. ISBN: 9781139471077. [Preview with Google Books]
• Babbage, Charles. Excerpts from the preface and chapters 10 and 19 of On the Economy of Machines and Manufactures. 1832. Project Gutenberg.
• Tocqueville, Alexis de. “That Aristocracy May Be Engendered by Manufactures.” Chapter XX in Democracy in America, Book Two. 1840. Marxists Internet Archive.
• 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. 
• Ferragamo, Salvatore. Excerpts from Shoemaker of Dreams. Rizzoli, 2022. ISBN: ‎9788892820883. [Preview with Google Books]

Session 4: Archaeology and Material Records of Craft (I)

• 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.
• Sellet, Frédéric. “Chaine Operatoire; The Concept and Its Applications.” Lithic Technology  18, nos. 1 and 2 (1993): 106–12.
• Caplan, Allison. “The Living Feather: Tonalli in Nahua Featherwork Production.” Ethnohistory 67, no. 3 (2020): 383–406.

Session 5: Archaeology and Material Records of Craft (II)

• Meier, Eric. “Wood Identification Guide.” 2024. The Wood Database.

Session 6: Art and Craft in Scientific Work (I)

Readings 

• Knappett, Carl. “Materiality in Archaeological Theory.” In Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology, second edition. Edited by Claire Smith. Springer, 2020. ISBN: ‎9783030300166.
• Stepanov, Ivan S., Lee Sauder, et al. “By the Hand of the Smelter: Tracing the Impact of Decision‑Making in Bloomery Iron Smelting.” Archaeological and Anthropological Sciences 14, article no. 80 (2022).

Audio

• “Weights and Measures” podcast (first segment only). December 14, 2016. Radiolab. 

Session 7: Art and Craft in Scientific Work (II)

Readings

• Zetterberg, J. Peter.  “The Mistaking of ’the Mathematicks’ for Magic in Tudor and Stuart England.” Sixteenth Century Journal 11, no. 1 (1980): 83–97.
• Schaffer, Simon. “Glass Works: Newton’s Prisms and the Uses of Experiment.” Chapter 2 in The Uses of Experiment: Studies in the Natural Sciences. Edited by David Gooding, Trevor Pinch, and Simon Schaffer. Cambridge University Press, 1989. ISBN: ‎9780521337687. [Preview with Google Books]
• Meyer, Michal. “The Language of Alchemy.” Distillations Magazine, November 14, 2016. 

Optional viewing

• “The History of Making Books: Build a Printing Press at MIT.” YouTube.

Session 8: Craft and Science in Artistic Media (I)

• Benton, Stephen A. “Rainbow Holograms.” Optics & Photonics News, July 1991.
• Nutch, Frank. “Gadgets, Gizmos, and Instruments: Science for the Tinkering.” Science, Technology, & Human Values 21, no. 2 (1996): 214–28.

Session 9: Craft and Science in Artistic Media (II)

• Myers, Natasha. “Molecular Embodiments and the Bodywork of Modeling in Protein Crystallography.” Social Studies of Science 38, no. 2 (2008): 163–99.

Session 10: Crafting the Museum (I)

• 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. 
• Haraway, Donna. “Teddy Bear Patriarchy: Taxidermy in the Garden of Eden, New York City, 1908–1936.” Social Text 11 (1984–1985): 20–64.

Session 11: Crafting the Museum (II)

• History of the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

Session 12: Health Between Art and Science 

• “William Henry Perkin.” Science History Institute Museum and Library.
• Michael, Mike.  “On ‘Aesthetic Publics’: The Case of VANTAblack®.” Science, Technology, & Humans Values 43, no. 6 (2018): 1098–121.
• St. Clair, Kassia. Selections from The Secret Lives of Color. Penguin Books, 2017. ISBN: ‎9780143131144. 
• Schneider, Christy. “The Color of Extraction.” July 28, 2022. Science History Institute Museum and Library.

Session 13: Knowing and Learning/Technology and Skill (I)

• Mauss, Marcel. “Techniques of the Body.” (PDF) Economy and Society 2, no. 1 (1973): 70–88.
• Morris, William. “The Revival of Handicraft.” Fortnightly Review, 1888. The William Morris Internet Archive: Works.
• 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. 

Session 14: Knowing and Learning/Technology and Skill (II)

• Ingold, Tim. “Beyond Art and Technology: The Anthropology of Skill.” Chapter 2 in Anthropological Perspectives on Technology. Edited by Michael Brian Schiffer. University of New Mexico Press, 2001. ISBN: ‎9780826323699. [Preview with Google Books]
• Maynard, Ashley E., Patricia M. Greenfield, and Carla P. Childs. “Culture, History, Biology, and Body: Native and Non-Native Acquisition of Technological Skill.” Ethos 27, no. 3 (1999): 379–402.
• Gamble, Jeanne. “Modelling the Invisible: The Pedagogy of Craft Apprenticeship.” Studies in Continuing Education 23, no. 2 (2001): 185–200.

Session 15: Embodied Practice in Practice (I)

• O’Connor, Erin. “Embodied Knowledge in Glassblowing: The Experience of Meaning and the Struggle Towards Proficiency.” Sociological Review 55, Supplement 1 (2007): 126–41.

Session 16: Embodied Practice in Practice (II)

• Harper, Douglas. Working Knowledge: Skill and Community in a Small Shop. University of California Press, 1987, pp. 1–9; 31–75. ISBN: ‎9780226316888. [Preview with Google Books]
• Stoner, Brandon. “A Brief History of Martin Guitars.” May 9, 2022. Guitar.com.

Session 17: The Craft of Egyptian Windows (I)

LOOK: Example of a house from Cairo showing how windows are used with wooden screens (mashrabiyya):

• Manzil Ahmad Katkhuda al-Razzaz, Cairo, Egypt. Archnet.

LISTEN (AND LOOK): Damascene reception hall featuring wooden interiors and stucco–stained glass windows:

• Damascus Room, dated 1119 AH/1707 CE. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

WATCH: Old documentary of the production process of such windows in Yemen:

• “Qamariya ‘Moon’ Stained Glass Window, Pre-Islamic Aug. 1975.” YouTube.

Session 18: The Craft of Egyptian Windows (II)

• Sennett, Richard. “Expressive Instructions.” Chapter 6 in The Craftsman. Yale University Press, 2009. ISBN: ‎9780300151190. 

Session 19: Starcraft: Recording/Envisioning Other Worlds (I)

• No readings assigned

Session 20: Starcraft: Recording/Envisioning Other Worlds (II)

• Saturno, William, Heather Hurst, et al. “To Set Before the King: Residential Mural Painting at Xultun, Guatemala.” Antiquity 89, no. 343 (2015): 122–36.

Session 21: Textiles of the Future

• Zollinger, Adelaide. “Redefining Design: Textiles at the Intersection of Tradition and Technology.” June 8, 2023. MIT Morningside Academy for Design.

Session 22: Politics and Identity of Craft

• 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.
• Swan, Sarah. “An Embroidered ‘Archive of War’ in Congo.” August 30, 2024. Pulitzer Center.

Session 23: Art, Craft, Science of Food 

• Paxson, Heather. “Post-Pasteurian Cultures: The Microbiopolitics of Raw-Milk Cheese in the United States.” Cultural Anthropology 23, no. 1 (2008): 15–47.

Session 24: Health and Medicine

• Moran-Thomas, Amy. “What Is Communicable?: Caregivers in an Illegible Epidemic.” Chapter 3 in Traveling with Sugar: Chronicles of a Global Epidemic. University of California Press, 2019. ISBN: ‎9780520969858. [Preview with Google Books]

Session 25: Anthroengineering and the Future of Art, Craft, Science

• Berthaume, Michael A., and Patricia Ann Kramer. “Anthroengineering: An Independent Interdisciplinary Field.” Interface Focus. 11. 20200056. http://doi.org/10.1098/rsfs.2020.0056 
• Chiang, Ted. “Why AI Isn’t Going to Make Art.” New Yorker, August 31, 2024.