21A.509/STS.474  Art, Craft, Science: Topics in Materiality Studies

This graduate seminar explores topics in material culture and materiality by focusing on the relationships between making (knowledge, objects, value, e.g.), doing (science, craft, horticulture, everyday life, e.g.) and living (social life and subjectivity). Anthropological and STS theories of craft, commodities, materiality, infrastructure, embodiment, skill, tacit and sensory knowledge, and value are used to explore distinctions between and connections among practices of art, craft and science. Ethnographic and historical case studies include commodification, agricultural and food production, taste, infrastructure design and repair, toxic embodiments, and the restoration of decaying art objects.