The International workshop on Craft and innovation in modern societies, co-sponsored by China’s national Institute for the History of Natural Sciences (IHNS), the China National Silk Museum (CNSM) and the international Society for the History of Technology (SHOT), will be held at Xin You Archives of China National Silk Museum from June 1st to 3rd , 2018.
This workshop has a two-fold aim. The first is to explore the crucial but often underestimated role of craft and craft skills in shaping technological processes of modernisation and industrialisation in the two largest Asian nations, China and India. The second is to reflect upon the relations between craft and innovation in those societies today, in the context of national concerns with heritage and conservation, with creativity and design, and with maintenance, sustainability and social equity.
The Hangzhou workshop will bring a comparative perspective to these issues, organised around the contrasting experiences of China and India and focusing on two technological domains key to the industrialisation and contemporary development of both nations, namely textiles and construction (architecture and machines). We bring together about 20 participants, from China, India and elsewhere, to attend and to contribute as experts in these fields and/or as general experts in the field of history of technology. We hope that the workshop, and the connections it creates, will (1) foster new transnational research links and collaborations, (2) promote non-eurocentric South-South comparative history of technology, (3) generate a productive cross-disciplinary exchange on methodology, and (4) eventually lead to the publication of a comparative volume on craft, technology and innovation in modern China and India.
Confirmed participants (in alphabetical order):
BRAY, Francesca (University of Edinburgh): history of technology, gender and state in pre-modern China, including textiles; anthropology of technology.
CHANG Qing (Tongji University, Academician at CAS ): reconstruction of traditional buildings combining craft techniques and structures with modern techniques; currently studying Tibetan potala-style architecture, and Westernised building in colonial Shanghai.
CLANCEY, Gregory (National University of Singapore ): history of building construction in Japan and in the US.
DUAN Hailong (Inner Mongolia Normal University, details to follow)
EYFERTH, Jacob (University of Chicago): history of crafts in China (paper-making); crafts in history; textile crafts, industrialisation and gender in modern China.
GUAN Xiaowu (IHNS ): history of technology, materials and construction techniques, heritage.
HÅRD, Mikael (TU Darmstadt): cultural history of technology, urban technologies, making of Europe, global history of technology.
IYENGAR, Sushma (Ahmedabad University / Kutch Mahila Vikas Sangathan): social activist and scholar, interested in crafts management (especially weaving), community rehabilitation and organisation building; member of AU Centre for Heritage Management, works on empowerment of craftspeople.
KO, Dorothy (Columbia University ): historian of gender and of crafts in China.
KRIGE, John (Georgia Tech; SHOT President ): history of science and technology in Cold War; writing transnational history.
MAMIDIPUDI, Annapurna (Maastricht University / Max Planck Institute for the History of Science): STS and history of crafts and technology in India, especially contemporary textile crafts and innovation (plus long experience in textile-worker NGOs)
NÈGRE, Valérie (Université Paris I-Sorbonne ): historian of architecture and construction, specialist in materials, techniques, history of knowledge, contemporary sustainable design.
PHIPPS, Elena (World Arts and Culture, UCLA): former President of Textile Society of America, research scholar at Metropolitan Museum of Art; expert on Andean textiles, author of Looking at Textiles: A Guide to Technical Terms.
RAMNATH, Aparajit (Ahmedabad University, SHOT International Scholar 2016-17): historian of science, technology and industry in South Asia. The Birth of an Indian Profession: Engineers, Industry, and the State, 1900-47 (OUP) was published in 2017.
REN Congcong (IHNS): history of architectural technology, bridge construction in China and Japan, technology as heritage.
SU Xuan (IHNS ): history of textile technology, combining of traditional crafts and modern textile industry in China in WWII.
SUN Lie (IHNS ) : History of technology, including technology transfer and innovation, Comparison of Chinese and Western industrialization.
VIRMANI, Sandeep (Managing Director, Hunnarshala Foundation; ), architect by training, at Hunnarshala he leads work on sustainable post-disaster housing for the poor, involving local artisans and using local materials and technologies.
WANG Bin (IHNS ), history of railways and of engineering, in China and elsewhere.
WU, Wei (TU Darmstadt ): global history of technology.
ZHANG Baichun (IHNS): history of engineering and machinery in early-modern and modern China and Europe.
ZHANG Duoduo (Dept of Design, Hunan University): STS and gender studies approach to textile-craft development programmes in SW China.
ZHAO Feng (Director, CNSM, Hangzhou): history of art and technology in silk production; research on silk worker movement from coast to Chongqing during Anti-Japanese War, and on hybrids of craft and engineering in KMT and CCP areas.
Conference Secretaries
CNMS: LIU Jian (Associate Professor, koyojohnson@126.com )
IHNS: YAO Dazhi (Associate Professor, yaodz@ihns.ac.cn )
For more information, please download the programme. Admission is free but registration is recommended. To register, please download the registration form. The maximum number of applicants is 20.
Registration: NSM
Day 1 (1 June)
Welcome and Plenary 9:00-10:00
Chair: Professor ZHAO Feng (NSM)
• Welcome by organizers or local officers (from Beijing, or Zhejiang provice)
• Introduction to the Workshop on Craft and Innovation, the Society for the History of Technology, Chennai Workshop, by Francesca Bray
• Introduction to the Chinese History of Technology by Chinese local organizers (Zhang Baichun)
10:00-12:00
Session, Master-Class, Skill Show by Chinese craftspeople at NSM
12:00-14:00 Lunch Time
14:00:16:00
Session, textile crafts and innovation (1): The place of textile crafts in transitions to the industrial state
Chair: Francesca BRAY
Presentations: Jacob EYFERTH, Annapurna MAMIDIPUDI, SU Xuan
Discussant: Elena PHIPPS
16:00-16:30 Tea Break
16:30-18:30
Session, Textile crafts and Innovation (2): modes of survival of textile crafts in the contemporary political economy
Chair: John KRIGE
Presentations: Sushma IYENGAR, ZHAO Feng, ZHANG Duoduo
Discussant: Dorothy KO
Day 2 (2 June)
8:30-10:30
Architecture, skill and innovation (1): old techniques in new building
Chair: Jacob EYFERTH
Presenters: CHANG Qing, Gregory CLANCEY, REN Congcong
Discussant: TBA
10:30-11:00 Tea Break
11:00-13:00
Architecture, skill and innovation (2): modes of sustainability
Chair: Ellen PHIPPS
Presenters: Sandeep VIRMANI, Valérie NÈGRE [Francesca Bray will present], GUAN Xiaowu & FENG Lisheng (Guan Xiaowu will present)
Discussant: CHANG Qing
13.00-14:30: Lunch Time
14:30-16:30
Craft and machinery in industrial society
Chair: Gregory CLANCEY
Presenters: Aparajit RAMNATH, SUN Lie, WANG Bin and DUAN Hailong
Discussant: Mikael HÅRD
Day 3 (3 June)
9:00-11:00
Roundtable discussion: Methods and uses for national, comparative or transnational histories of craft and innovation: the historian, the policy-maker / activist, the museum curator
To open the discussion (10 minutes each): John KRIGE, Sushma IYENGAR, ZHAO Feng, ZHANG Baichun
11.00-11.30: Tea Break
11.30-13.00
Final roundtable discussion: future plans (publications, displays, collaborations, further workshops, etc) Chair: Francesca Bray
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