Gender Studies 333TX - Advanced Seminar: 'Abolition and Radical Textiles'

How do the topics of abolition and textiles come together? Marginalized communities have historically used folkloric, textile arts and material culture to amplify abolitionist causes. From secret quilt codes of the Underground Railroad to an abolitionist community sustained by a silk mill in Florence, Massachusetts how might thinking with textiles intervene on patriarchal systems rooted in rigidity, isolation and punishment? From the social devaluation of domesticized and feminized labor of weaving, quilting, sewing to banners, students will theorize and experiment with textiles, leaving with a grounded understanding of how textiles/fibers can and have played an essential role in the history of abolition.

Prereq: 8 credits in Critical Race and Political Economy, Gender Studies, and/or Art Studio.