This course will train students in art historical and material culture approaches for interpreting what textiles can reveal about the past. Our focus will be on the production and use of textiles intended as both fine art and everyday objects in Europe during the seventeenth through the nineteenth centuries, when global trade and industrialization became significant factors shaping how textiles were produced, how they looked, and how they were used. We will examine how textiles have functioned as both a medium and a metaphor; that is, how artisans and artists, noble patrons, and ordinary people have used textiles as a means of articulating key contemporary issues and ideas. Many of the authors we will read also model in their analyses how we as scholars might use textiles to inspire new ways of thinking. You will have the opportunity to learn from practical experience with textiles by observing demonstrations by practitioners in the fiber arts and examining artifacts in local museum collections. As a final project, you will learn to curate your own digital exhibition on textiles.

In this course, you will gain an understanding of:

• The broad trajectory of visual art in Europe, ca. 1650-1900, and how "fine" visual art interacted with "decorative," "industrial," and "craft" arts.
• How natural materials (silk, wool, linen, cotton) and techniques (weaving, stitching, dyeing, and printing) were used to create different types of ornamented cloth. Further, you will learn how textiles generated a range of meanings through the combination of the materials used to make them, their mode of making, and their visual content. You will also be able to articulate how these meanings shifted over time.
• How textiles can be approached as emotive, highly personal objects connected with the body and aspects of identity, including nationality and gender.
• How textiles functioned as key commodities and political actors in global and local economies, shaping labor and consumption practices in the context of the rise of the modern "fast"; fashion system. The influence of Indian textiles on European fashion will be a recurring theme.
• How to catalog and "speak" with objects as a curator. We will use Omeka, an open-source, web-based program widely used by museums and archives, to create object records and digital exhibitions.

Textbooks/Other Materials: All materials will be available on Canvas and in the Fine Arts Library

Intended Audience: Undergraduate students in art history as well as any students interested in the histories of science and technology, trade, fashion, design, business, and consumerism.

Class Format: Two 120-minute weekly meetings will include lectures, discussion of readings, student presentations, and small group activities. Several meetings will take place outside the classroom, at various sites around campus.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $0-$50

HISTART Distribution Requirements: D. Europe and the US, 3. Early Modern, 4. Modern and Contemporary