Teaching Textiles: The History of Craft Instruction is a symposium at the School of Human Ecology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in celebration of the 50th Anniversary of the Helen Louise Allen Textile Collection.
The Teaching Textiles symposium will explore the nexus of skill, education, communication, enterprise, and collecting. Because textiles are used so broadly— from the necessities of shelter, such as clothing, fabric structures, and bedding; to luxuries, such as ornamental embroidery for embellishing the home or body; to cultural symbols, such as religious vestments—the dissemination of their making also ranges broadly, across place and time. We welcome proposals for case studies, comparisons, or thematic approaches from across history and around the globe.