Disobeying Arts and Crafts Studies Orthodoxy
Dr Thomas Cooper (Lincoln College)
5pm Wed 6 November
What does it meant to describe someone as ‘Arts and Crafts’? What does it mean to define craftspeople, designers, architects and theorists active the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries as being members of, or associated with, the Arts and Crafts movement? I have these and other questions in mind as I discuss my research on the career and work of the artist, writer and teacher, May Morris (1862-1938). While Morris has been understood as a leading figure of the Arts and Crafts movement, in my current project I am consciously attempting to find an alternative way to think about and write a critical history of her career and work. In doing so, I am disobeying Arts and Crafts orthodoxy. But, by the same token, I am experimenting with ways of opening up the possibilities of what is known and sayable within Arts and Crafts scholarship.
_____
Dr Thomas Cooper is the HR Woudhuysen Junior Research Fellow in Material Culture at Lincoln College, Oxford. He studied at The Courtauld Institute of Art (BA and MA) and the University of Cambridge, where he earned his PhD in History of Art in 2024. His thesis was a monographical study of the artist, writer and lecturer May Morris (1862-1938), which he is now revising into a book manuscript. At Lincoln, Thomas is beginning a new research project that examines the emergence and development of English-language textile historiography between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
_____
Open to all. No booking required. All talks are approximately one hour and followed by a drinks reception.
Lecture Theatre
Faculty of History
George Street
OX1 2RL
