Table Of ContentA Companion to
Textile Culture
WILEY BLACKWELL COMPANIONS TO ART HISTORY
These invigorating reference volumes chart the influence of key ideas, discourses, and
theories on art, and the way that it is taught, thought of, and talked about throughout the
English‐speaking world. Each volume brings together a team of respected international
scholars to debate the state of research within traditional subfields of art history as well as
in more innovative, thematic configurations. Representing the best of the scholarship
governing the field and pointing toward future trends and across disciplines, the Blackwell
Companions to Art History series provides a magisterial, state‐of‐the‐art synthesis of art
history.
1 A Companion to Contemporary Art since 1945
edited by Amelia Jones
2 A Companion to Medieval Art
edited by Conrad Rudolph
3 A Companion to Asian Art and Architecture
edited by Rebecca M. Brown and Deborah S. Hutton
4 A Companion to Renaissance and Baroque Art
edited by Babette Bohn and James M. Saslow
5 A Companion to British Art: 1600 to the Present
edited by Dana Arnold and David Peters Corbett
6 A Companion to Modern African Art
edited by Gitti Salami and Monica Blackmun Visonà
7 A Companion to Chinese Art
edited by Martin J. Powers and Katherine R. Tsiang
8 A Companion to American Art
edited by John Davis, Jennifer A. Greenhill and Jason D. LaFountain
9 A Companion to Digital Art
edited by Christiane Paul
10 A Companion to Dada and Surrealism
edited by David Hopkins
11 A Companion to Public Art
edited by Cher Krause Knight and Harriet F. Senie
12 A Companion to Islamic Art and Architecture, Volumes 1 and 2
edited by Finbarr Flood and Gulru Necipoglu
13 A Companion to Modern Art
edited by Pam Meecham
14 A Companion to Contemporary Design since 1945
edited by Anne Massey
15 A Companion to Illustration
edited by Alan Male
16 A Companion to Modern and Contemporary Latin American and Latino Art,
edited by Alejandro Anreus, Robin Greeley, and Megan Sullivan
17 A Companion to Feminist Art
edited by Hilary Robinson and Maria Elena Buszek
18 A Companion to Curation
edited by Brad Buckley and John Conomos
19 A Companion to Textile Culture
edited by Jennifer Harris
Forthcoming
1 A Companion to Australian Art
edited by Christopher Allen
A Companion to
Textile Culture
Edited by
Jennifer Harris
This edition first published 2020
© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or
transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise,
except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is
available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions.
The right of Jennifer Harris to be identified as the author of the editorial material in this work has been
asserted in accordance with law.
Registered Office
John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 111 River Street, Hoboken, NJ 07030, USA
Editorial Office
The Atrium, Southern Gate, Chichester, West Sussex, PO19 8SQ, UK
For details of our global editorial offices, customer services, and more information about Wiley products
visit us at www.wiley.com.
Wiley also publishes its books in a variety of electronic formats and by print‐on‐demand. Some content
that appears in standard print versions of this book may not be available in other formats.
Limit of Liability/Disclaimer of Warranty
While the publisher and authors have used their best efforts in preparing this work, they make no
representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this work
and specifically disclaim all warranties, including without limitation any implied warranties of
merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. No warranty may be created or extended by sales
representatives, written sales materials or promotional statements for this work. The fact that an
organization, website, or product is referred to in this work as a citation and/or potential source of
further information does not mean that the publisher and authors endorse the information or services the
organization, website, or product may provide or recommendations it may make. This work is sold with
the understanding that the publisher is not engaged in rendering professional services. The advice and
strategies contained herein may not be suitable for your situation. You should consult with a specialist
where appropriate. Further, readers should be aware that websites listed in this work may have changed
or disappeared between when this work was written and when it is read. Neither the publisher nor
authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited
to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages.
Library of Congress Cataloging‐in‐Publication Data
Name: Harris, Jennifer, 1949– editor.
Title: A companion to textile culture / edited by Jennifer Harris.
Description: Hoboken, NJ : Wiley-Blackwell, 2020. | Series: Wiley-Blackwell
companions to art history | Includes bibliographical references and
index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2020001906 (print) | LCCN 2020001907 (ebook) | ISBN
9781118768907 (cloth) | ISBN 9781118768648 (adobe pdf) | ISBN
9781118768600 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Textile fabrics–History.
Classification: LCC NK8806 .C66 2020 (print) | LCC NK8806 (ebook) | DDC
677.009–dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020001906
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020001907
Cover Design: Wiley
Cover Images: Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll, ‘Cook’s New Clothes, Procession for Tupaia’,
Performance in The Atlantic Project, 2018 Image reproduced courtesy of Khadija von Zinnenburg
Carroll. Photograph by Dom Moore
Set in 10/12pt Galliard by SPi Global, Pondicherry, India
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
The book is dedicated to Paul,
Caroline, and Stephanie Howe.
Contents
Acknowledgments xi
List of Figures xiii
Series Editor’s Preface xvii
Notes on Contributors xix
General Introduction 1
Part I Histories and Frameworks 7
1 Unraveling the Fabric of the Past: Interdisciplinary Approaches to
Archaeological Textiles 11
Margarita Gleba
2 Textile Cultures in the Early Modern World 27
Robert S. DuPlessis
3 Rewriting Textile Culture with Woven Words: “Oro es tu hilar” by
Chilean Poet Cecilia Vicuña 45
Meredith G. Clark
4 Branding Tradition: The Commercialization of Hand Embroidery
in Gujarat 61
Eiluned Edwards
5 “The Real Thing”: How Object Analysis Unlocks Meaning and
Enriches Documentary Evidence 83
Adrienne D. Hood
viii ◼ ◼ ◼ Contents
Part II Textiles, Trade, and Global Culture 105
6 Reading Textiles: Transmission and Technology of Silk Road Textiles
in the First Millennium 109
Angela Sheng
7 West Africa: Technology, Tradition, and Lurex Revisited 127
John Picton
8 Textiles of Eastern and Southern Africa 145
Chris Spring
9 Remaking Tradition in Art and Design in Pakistan 165
Naazish Ata‐Ullah, Zeb Bilal and Shehnaz Ismail
Part III The Social Fabric: The Politics and Poetics of Cloth 181
10 Fabricating Identity: Textiles in the Pacific 187
Paul Sharrad
11 Stitching (in) Trauma: Constructing Identity in Thread Behind
Prison Bars 201
Maureen Daly Goggin
12 Creative Tensions: Making (It), Unmaking, and Making Do in
Textiles Informed by Feminism 219
Alexandra Kokoli
13 Spinning a Yarn of One’s Own 235
Christine Checinska
14 Pictures and Polemics: Muslim Veiling Practices in Contemporary Art 257
Valerie Behiery
15 The Subversive Stitch Revisited 275
Lisa Vinebaum
Part IV Conceptual Boundaries 299
16 Modernism’s Roots in the Domestic, Decorative, and Vernacular
Through Textiles 303
Virginia Gardner Troy
17 Material Strategies: Cloth and Textile Metaphors in Modern
and Contemporary Art 317
Jennifer Harris
18 Pragmatics of Attachment and Detachment: A Constellatory
Reinscription of Textile 333
Maxine Bristow
Contents ◼ ◼ ◼ ix
19 Japanese Textile Culture: The Example of Junichi Arai and Five
Other Creators 353
Akiko Moriyama
20 Stories of Innovation: Fabrication in Africa and Beyond 371
Atta Kwami
Part V Reception and Representation 391
21 Around the World in 80 Biennials: Curating Lausanne,
Hangzhou, Kaunas 395
Janis Jefferies and Lee Weinberg
22 Indigenous Textiles of North America: A Century of Exhibitions 417
Elizabeth Kalbfleisch and Janet Catherine Berlo
23 Valorizing Gee’s Bend Quilts: Affinity, Adjacency, and the Modern Eye 435
Karin E. Peterson and Leisa Rundquist
24 Performing the Political in Oceanian Textile Cultures: Collectivity,
Syncretism, and Globalization 459
Khadija von Zinnenburg Carroll
Index 475
Acknowledgments
The Companion to Textile Culture has been a long time in gestation. First conceived
some years ago, it has been a complex, but always inspiring, project to bring to fru-
ition. In view of this I would particularly like to thank those who came on board at an
early stage for their patience and commitment to the volume and its ambitions. They
know who they are. But my thanks are due equally to those who, for a variety of rea-
sons, joined later in the journey and made thoughtful and significant contributions
against sometimes very tight deadlines. During that period the recognition of textiles
as a key element of material culture both historically and globally, and their semiotic
potential as a medium of contemporary art, has continued to expand exponentially.
My primary thanks are thus extended to all the contributors to this volume. I would
also like to express my gratitude to Akiko Shimizu and Nicolas Cambridge for their
enthusiastic participation in the project via their sensitive translation of Akiko
Moriyama’s chapter on Japanese textile culture, and to acknowledge the generosity of
the many individuals and organizations – artists, public and commercial galleries,
researchers, curators, and others – who have assisted with sourcing the powerful and
apposite images that accompany the book. At Wiley I have enjoyed the support of an
able production team, most notably Richard Samson and Sakthivel Kandaswamy.
However, my especial thanks go to my copyeditor, Sandra Kerka. She has shown
meticulous care in ensuring consistency across a complex multiauthored volume, and
I have appreciated her genuine enthusiasm for the subject matter.
The architecture of the book grew out of my thinking about textiles over a long
career in the museum and gallery sector and from many years of stimulating discussion
with colleagues (artists, curators, and academics) in the sector more broadly. I am
hugely indebted to those I have worked with in a variety of different capacities.
I would like to acknowledge a grant from the Leverhulme Trust, awarded as part of
an Emeritus Fellowship in 2016–2017, that has supported in many different ways the
collating and editing of this book.
Jennifer Harris, 2020
List of Figures
1.1a Example of mineralized weft‐faced tabby weave cloth from Greece,
early first millennium bce. 13
1.1b Example of twill weave cloth from Italy, early first millennium bce. 13
1.2a European mouflon ram (Ovis orientalis musimon),
Chemnitz, Germany. 17
1.2b Poll merino ram. 17
1.3 Bronze Age discoid loom weight from Miletos, Turkey. 19
1.4 Terracotta oil flask (Lekythos) depicting women weaving at a vertical,
warp‐weighted loom, c. 550–530 bce. Attributed to the Amasis
painter (sixth century bce). 22
4.1 Detail of Jat embroidery on “art panel” hanging made by KMVS
(NGO), 2003. 62
4.2 Hands of Dhebaria Rabari woman embroidering a blouse, 1996. 66
4.3 Vagadia Rabari wedding, northeast Kachchh, 1997. 68
4.4 Dowry embroideries refashioned into tourist goods. Udaipur,
Rajasthan, 2004. 73
4.5 Shrujan embroiderers at a course to upgrade skills, 2003. 78
5.1a “Log Cabin” quilt (front) in the Textile Museum of Canada,
Toronto. 84
5.1b “Log Cabin” quilt (reverse). 84
5.2 “Loghouse Quilting,” illustrated in S. F. A. Caulfield and
B. C. Saward, The Dictionary of Needlework (1882). 85
5.3 “Log Cabin” quilt (detail). 86
5.4 Quilt from Pakistan (ralli), mid‐twentieth century. 88
5.5 Quilt from Canada, early twentieth century. 88
5.6 “Log Cabin” quilt (folded). 89
5.7 “Log Cabin” quilt (detail of reverse). 90
5.8 “Log Cabin” quilt (detail of one square unit). 91
5.9 “Log Cabin” quilt (rough sketch of one square unit made
by the author). 92
