The Textile Reader

This Reader is not merely a collection, but more of an interrogation that speaks from the past to the future. With this in mind, The Textile Reader is not a page turner, but a constant companion, a new friend that has been there and done that, and thus offers the reader a platform from which to consider and develop the future of the discipline. -- Textile History (of the 1st edition) [T]he pieces are well chosen: they read as though they were selected because someone likes them and finds them interesting, and this gives the selection personality and integrity ... Its greatest value is, however, in its general sense of opening out the genres and the way in which it creates a space for different types of writing on textiles to be considered on an equal footing. -- The Journal of Modern Craft (of the 1st edition) Will undoubtedly become a key resource for all those interested in considering the location of textile practice, but also for those who seek to understand and challenge textile practice's perceived inferiority as a mode of practice. -- Embroidery Magazine (of the 1st edition) An ideal foundational text to give an overview of the broad field of Textile Research. It allows students access to a range of themes and key authors in the field which can then be researched in more depth. -- Dr Fiona Curran, Royal College of Art, UK (of the 1st edition) Evocative, expansive, and enchanting. Hemmings weaves together essays, poems, and literary gems that reveal the nuanced, complex, curious, intimate and political touchpoints of textiles in our lives for a more inclusive, affective reading of our world. I recommend this brilliant anthology to creative scholars, enquiring readers, and knitters, weavers, makers, designers and textile artists worldwide. - Dr Erica de Greef, Co-Director, African Fashion Research Institute, South Africa The Textile Reader is an essential companion to anyone studying, researching or critically thinking about textiles. Compelling new essays, wider geographies and a greater diversity of voices bring added depth and richness to this distinctive anthology. The excerpts from novels, short stories and poetry within each thematic section, hold the attention and are reminders of the potential power of textiles to speak both cross-culturally and transnationally. - Dr Christine Checinska, Senior Curator, V&A Museum

Jessica Hemmings is Professor of Craft at HDK-Valand, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. She is Visiting Professor with the Doctoral School of Moholy-Nagy University of Art and Design in Budapest, Hungary (2022), the Rita Bolland Fellow at the Research Centre for Material Culture, the Netherlands (20202023 and a member of the editorial boards of Textile: The Journal of Cloth & Culture and Craft Research. Jessica is the author of Yvonne Vera: the Voice of Cloth (2008), Warp & Weft (Bloomsbury, 2012), and the editor of In the Loop: Knitting Now (2012) and Cultural Threads (Bloomsbury, 2014).

Introduction 1. Touch 1. Victoria Mitchell (1997) Textiles, Text and Techne 2. Tai Smith (2014) The Haptics of Optics: Weaving and Photography (excerpt) 3. Elaine Igoe (2010) The Tacit-Turn: Textile design in design research 4. Pennina Barnett (1999) Folds, Fragments, Surfaces: Towards a poetics of cloth 5. Catherine Harper (2005) Meditation on Translation and Seduction 6. Isak Dinesen (1957) The Blank Page 7. Birgitta Nordstrom (2020) How do you Footnote a Smile? One Dialog about Two Extremes of Textile Research 2. Memory 8. Jenni Sorkin (2000) Stain: On Cloth, Stigma, and Shame 9. Isabel Cristina Gonzlez Arango (2013/2021) Claiming the Right to Memory, Stitch by Stitch: The experience of the Costurero Tejedoras por la Memoria de Sonsn (the Sonsn Memory Sewing Group) 10. Marit Paasche (2019) We Are Living on a Star (excerpt) 11. Roger Hutchinson (2011) The Silent Weaver (excerpt) 12. Faith Ringgold (2019) Interview: Faith Ringgold and Hans Ulrich Obrist (excerpt) 13. Sue Prichard (2005) Collecting the Contemporary: Love Will Decide What Is Kept and Science Will Decide How It Is Kept 14. Sarah Scaturro (2020) (Im)mortal Fashion: Iris van Herpens Skeleton Dress 15. Takahashi Mizuki (2019) Hong Kongs Textile Industrial Heritage: Transformations to a place of weaving creative experiences for all 3. Structure 16. Gottfried Semper (1851/1989) The Four Elements of Architecture (excerpt) 17. Philip Beesley (1999) Reflexive Textile 18. Otti Berger and Judith Raum (1930/2019) Fabrics in Space & Weaving and Interior Design: Voice-over for the video Discussion of Material (excerpt) 19. Catherine de Zegher (1997) Ouvrage: Knot a Not, Notes as Knots 20. Gilles Deleuze & Felix Guattari (1987) 1440 The Smooth & the Striated (excerpt) 21. Sabrina Gschwandtner (2008) Knitting Is 22. Kate Goldsworthy, Rebecca Earley and Kay Politowicz (2019) Circular Speeds: A Review of Fast & Slow Sustainable Design Approaches for Fashion & Textile Applications 4. Politics 23. James Fenimore Cooper (1843) Autobiography of a Pocket Handkerchief (excerpt) 24. Arthur C. Danto (2006) Weaving as Metaphor and Model for Political Thought 25. Sarat Maharaj (1991) Arachnes Genre: Towards Intercultural Studies in Textiles 26. Susan S. Bean (1989) Gandhi and Khadi, the Fabric of Indian Independence 27. Pamela Johnson (2011) 100% Cotton 28. Galina Kareva (2011/2021) Ivanovos Agitprop Textiles: Design and Inscriptions 29. Elisa Auther (2008) Fiber Art and the Hierarchy of Art and Craft, 196080 30. Julia Bryan-Wilson (2017) Queer Handmaking (excerpt) 31. Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892) The Yellow Wallpaper (excerpt) 5. Production 32. Roger MacDougall (1951) The Man in the White Suit (excerpt) 33. Maria Fusco (2018) machine oil smells sweet (piecework) 34. Melanie Miller (2007) The Romance of Modern Manufacture: A Brief History of Embroidered Embellishment 35. Sadie Plant (1997) Zeroes + Ones: Digital women + the new technoculture (excerpt) 36. Ele Carpenter (2010) Open Source Embroidery: Curatorial Facilitation Of Material Networks 37. Boatema Boateng (2011) Why Should the Copyright Thing Work Here? (excerpt) 38. Sarah Rhodes (2015) Contemporary textile imagery in Southern Africa: a question of ownership 39. Yosi Anaya (2016/2021) Henequen, A Green Fiber with a Complex History in Yucatan 6. Community 40. Nathaniel Hawthorne (1850) The Scarlet Letter (excerpt) 41. Joseph McBrinn (2021) Needlework and the creation of masculinities: The prick of patriarchy (excerpt) 42. Jools Gilson (2012) Navigation, Nuance and half/angel's Knitting Map: A series of navigational directions 43. Rose Sinclair (2020) Tracing Back to Trace Forwards: What does it mean/take to be a Black t