Call for Chapter Outlines
Lesley Millar and Alice Kettle, GB
Deadline: 12.01.2021

Call for Chapter Outlines  Lesley Millar and Alice Kettle, GB Deadline: 12.01.2021

SEA (one of three works, Ground, Sea, Sky), detail, by Alice Kettle
Thread Bearing Witness project
Stitch on printed canvas, 3 m x 8 m, 2017
Courtesy of the artist and Candida Stevens Gallery
Photo: Michael Pollard

It is now over 30 years since Annette B. Weiner and Jane Schneider published their foundational book 'Cloth and Human Experience'. In this book they wrote: ''..cloth represents the key dilemmas of social and political life: how to bring the past actively into the present. Ultimately, the opposing properties of cloth - its inalienability and its fragility - exemplify these universal needs and their contradictions". Since that time much has happened in art practice, theoretical writing and scientific exploration of the possibilities offered by this relationship between cloth and our socio-political and personal experiences. We think it timely to reflect on the changes and developments of our interest in and understanding of  that relationship. Building on our experience with our book The Erotic Cloth we would like to invite Chapter Outlines for consideration for our proposed book 'For the record: cloth and the threads of communication' (working title).

We will draw from a diverse and multi-cultural range of voices and, following our approach with The Erotic Cloth, will take a non-disciplinary specific approach. We would welcome submissions from all aspects of visual art and design practice, history and theory; performing arts; film; digital technology; architecture; science; anthropology; ethnography. Subjects may address but not be confined to:

  • Cloth as a record of the everyday,
  • Cloth and its role in rituals
  • Cloth and the processes of making.
  • Cloth as a record of identity, of personal and political histories and memories.
  • Cloth as a record of patterns, symbols, associated colours and emblems of culture
  • Cloth as a record of passage and geographical interaction with the world
  • Cloth as a witness to a moment: of celebration or of distress or of sorrow.

Outlines should be sent jointly to:
Prof Alice Kettle: a.kettle@mmu.ac.uk
Prof Lesley Millar: lmillar@uca.ac.uk
Deadline: January 12th 2021

Outline to include
name and affiliation
Title
Chapter Outline (500 words max.)
Short CV (250 words)
Keywords

Lesley Millar and Alice Kettle were joint Editors and contributors to 'The Erotic Cloth' published by Bloomsbury Academic 2018.
Alice Kettle is Professor of Textile Arts at Manchester School of Art, Faculty of Arts and Humanities, Manchester Metropolitan University.
Lesley Millar is Professor of Textile Culture and Director of the International Textile Research Centre at the University for the Creative Arts.

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