EuroWeb, in collaboration with the Ecole française d’Athènes, the University of Florence and the INSTAP SCEC, is organising a one-week training school on hands-on approach to textile tools. The objective of the course is to familiarise trainees with the textile technology and, specifically, with the functionality of textile tools. The abundant archaeological evidence for textile production from the Bronze Age site of Malia on Crete is our case study. The training school offers short introductory lectures, hands-on learning, and experimental/experiential activities. The trainees will study and recreate Minoan textile tools, and will learn to spin and weave using them and how to document them.

Malia TS short programme

Making, Wearing, Displaying: Textiles and the Body in Pre-Modern Societies

Lisbon (PT), 3-5 May 2023

Organizing Committee:

Francisco B. Gomes (PT), Audrey Gouy (FR), Elsa Yvanez (DK), Magdalena Wozniak (PL), Catarina Costeira (PT) & Louise Quillien (FR)

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Recent archaeological and historical research has come to highlight a point that anthropological and ethnographic narratives have already long recognized: that bodies play a crucial role in the construction, display and negotiation of social, cultural, and individual identities. Theories of embodiment – a term that has become a true buzzword across the Social Sciences and the Humanities – have made substantial headway in these research fields, refocusing our understanding of past human experiences.

New interpretative frameworks have in fact arisen which depart from previous idealist frames of reference to ground those experiences on the materiality of the human body and the specificities of its engagement with the world around it. Embodied experience, practice and the role of the senses have come to the fore as cutting-edge topics of analysis, shedding new light on the role of the body as an identity locus and an arena for the negotiation of both social belonging and specific senses of the self.

Few components of the material world of past communities had a more intimate relationship with the body than textiles. Their very production reflects a set of defined gestures full of cultural meaning. Worn as garments, they protected and sheltered the body against the elements. As intricate elements, they also inspired people in the development of visual codes through which to project specific social and cultural messages, signalling either belonging or distinction.

They concealed and revealed, smoothed or enhanced, shaped and constrained, mapping onto the body a range of social and cultural meanings, norms and habits, which were at the core of individual socialization and collective culture-making. The way they were fashioned – for rest or movement, to enhance certain actions and bodily attributes and conceal others, to differentiate or homogenize – had tremendous cultural significance, shaping the socially conventional techniques of the body (sensu Mauss) individuals were expected to master. In this sense, they contributed to the creation of specific regimes of embodiment, while becoming a true social skin (sensu Turner) which acted as an interface between the self and society.

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The International EuroWeb Workshop Making, Wearing, Displaying: Textiles and the Body in Pre-Modern Societies aims at exploring diverse bodily experiences of textiles and their socio-cultural significance through an interdisciplinary lens. We wish to bring together historical, archaeological, anthropological and bioanthropological perspectives to explore common topics of interest and the shared theoretical and methodological tools that can be deployed in present and future research on the relationship between textiles and the body.

In doing so, and based on the newest research and latest discoveries, the workshop aims at covering this topic in as broad a sense as possible, and will therefore be structured along four major thematic axes:

1. Thinking about the Body: Theoretical Tools from the Social Sciences, the Humanities, and Beyond

2. The Making Body: Capturing the Gestures of Craftspeople

3. Wearing Textiles: Insights from Archaeology, Iconography and Written Sources

4. Textiles in Motion: The Dressed Body in Movement

For each of these thematic axes, a panel of invited speakers will discuss specific topics and lines of research, introducing participants to current theoretical and methodological concepts and debates, and offering thought-provoking case studies aimed at fuelling a collective debate and reflection. The programme will also include practical sessions and visits to Museum exhibits relating to the topic of the workshop, to be announced soon.

Call for Papers:

The Organizing Committee is keen to open this debate to other voices, topics, and case studies, and is therefore happy to invite proposals for short presentations (c. 15 minutes) related to the workshop’s thematic scope. Prospective participants can approach the topic of the relationship between textiles and the body in pre-modern societies from any perspective – historical, archaeological, anthropological, or other – but interdisciplinary approaches are especially welcome, as are presentations with a well-developed conceptual framework.

Proposals for short presentations at the workshop can be submitted by filling the form available here until the 31st of January 2023. The costs incurred by EuroWeb members selected to attend this workshop may be covered by the Action in accordance with COST reimbursement rules. Any questions about this call and the workshop in general can be sent by email to Francisco B. Gomes (franciscojbgomes@gmail.com).

Organization:

This three-day conference will take place online to ensure that as many colleagues as possible will be able to participate. The conference is organised by Magdalena Wozniak (University of Warsaw), Paula Nabais (NOVA University of Lisbon), and Cecilie Brøns (Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen).

With clothing, humans express aspects of identity such as their gender, age, beliefs, and social status. Ancient costumes combine skin and textile, wrapping and tailoring. Many clothing elements in antiquity are unisex but are worn differently according to gender and age.

Children’s clothes are generally simple, but Roman children, for example, expressed their civil status and gender through clothing. Adults negotiate the changes in their age, body and status through garments. Poor people, slaves, and workers performing hard physical work, wear loose-fitting garments allowing freedom of movement and Late Antique sources report on second-hand clothing as an important part of the economy. Members of the elite, on the other hand, display their wealth through luxurious garments, decorated with complex patterns including precious metals and stones as well as precious dyes.

A legal framework of sumptuary laws and prohibitions, and a normative framework of appropriate dress, accompany dress history for at least 2500 years. Fashionable items are generated from innovations and trade, and they have the capacity to alter body perceptions and gendered features of dress.

The objective of this conference is to bring together experts from various disciplines and working on diverse chronological periods (from Prehistory to the 21st century) and geographical areas to address the question of clothing as an expression of identity.

The conference is divided in three main themes:

1) Age and gender

The use of textiles and dress to express aspects of identity, particularly age and gender, as part of non-verbal communication systems. How do gender and age through clothing express one’s place in the economic, social, and productive spheres in ancient and historical societies?

2) Clothing identities in museums

The existence of legal and normative frameworks, sumptuary laws and religious prescriptions aimed at regulating dress. How and to which extent did sumptuary laws and prohibitions shape ancient and historical clothing?

3) Clothing regulations in sumptuary and religious dress.

How can we rethink and re-make dress exhibitions in museums in a more inclusive way, and discuss their colonial, ethnic, nationalistic, and religious markers and symbolism? We also welcome papers presenting various dissemination strategies to prompt interaction between textile collections in museums and the public.

The conference will take place online, via Zoom. The access link will be sent to the speakers via e-mail prior to the conference to all speakers. Please access the link, at least 5 minutes prior to the beginning of the sessions.

All speakers will have 20 minutes allocated for their presentations followed by 10 minutes for discussion. The organisers kindly ask the speakers to keep their scheduled time, to avoid any delays.

The conference will be broadcasted via Youtube. The audience can follow the conference live at the EuroWeb Youtube Channel.

The programme is set for the timezone GMT +1h / UTC +1h. Please check your timezone and adjust accordingly.

Any questions should be addressed to: eurowebwg2@gmail.com

International conference at the University of Lille, France

27-28-29-30 April 2022

Textiles are smart. First, they constantly communicate. As for clothes, they quickly convey decisive information about their holders, and in consequence, they create constant interactions with viewers. They inform about ethnicity, age, gender, profession, religion, social status. In this regard, they also contribute to the fabric and reinforcement of social identities. They are a crucial part of the “Presentation of Self in Everyday Life”, as highlighted by Erwin Goffman. They personalize.

Second, in addition to their traditional properties, clothes are also particularly operative in terms of movement. They are optimized, and they have active functions. They are adapted to daily, sport and professional movements, to various types of performances, and to specific assignments. They ease, assist, monitor, regulate, protect, reinforce, and raise capabilities. They are intelligent.

Based on the latest discoveries and research, this international conference aims at investigating how smart textiles are through time, from Antiquity to our contemporary world. Indeed, how, why and in which extent clothes and textiles have been used and are still used as an extension, development and augmentation of human identity, intelligence, and physical capacities? How does this impact and what does this require in terms of production, consumption and use?

This will be investigated though three main topics, as following:

1. PERSONALIZED TEXTILES
How do clothes communicate and what are the different strategies used in this regard through time? What do they communicate, and why? Do they highlight or undermine characterizations such as age, gender, profession, religion, social status? Is there a personalized production of textiles (gender, age, family, religion)? How is the process of perception and cognition engaged in the design and wearing of personalized textiles, and how can it be studied?

2. INTELLIGENT TEXTILES
What are textiles and clothes optimized for? How textiles and clothes are optimized through time, and what are the different strategies engaged? Do clothes have memory? Can we retrace from them someone’s behaviour, movement, and health, for example? Are clothes multifunctional? If yes, in which extent? And how can this be studied? How do clothes and textiles regulate, ease, assist? Which mechanics and mechanisms are involved in intelligent textiles? In which extent are textiles conceived to be less impactful for the body and the environment?

3. DIGITAL TEXTILES
Which digital tools can be used for smart textiles’ research and conception? How digital tools can enhance our understanding of smart textiles and fibres? How can they help to improve research on smart textiles and clothes? How can they intensify personalization and intelligence of textiles? What are the possibilities offered, but also the problems encountered with the use of digital tools in textile research? How digital tools can help procession of textiles and clothes?

The conference is thought as an exploratory fruitful dialogue, with insights and stimulation, between discoveries and understanding of ancient textiles production and use, and the latest research and discoveries in modern textile performance and clothes properties, resistance, and consumption. This 3-day conference will be organized in collaboration between the HALMA laboratory (UMR 8164), the ENSAIT in Roubaix (Textile Engineering School), the National Work Archives in Roubaix (Archives Nationales du Monde du Travail) and the CETI in Tourcoing (Centre Européen des Textiles Innovants).

This exceptional collaboration builds on the history of textile production, groundbreaking research and innovation that have been at the heart of the French region Nord for centuries. The attendees and speakers of the conference will have a privileged access to current experiments and trainings held at the ENSAIT and the CETI, as well as unprecedented exhibitions and dissemination events organized at the National Work Archives in Roubaix for “2022, Year of Textile in the region Nord”.

The proposals are to be sent to the organizers of the event (audrey.gouy@univ-lille.fr) before January 31st, 2022. Notifications of acceptance will be sent at the beginning of February 2022. The event will take place in Lille, Roubaix and Tourcoing on April 27-28-29-30, 2022. The language of the conference will be English.

Organizers: Dr. Audrey Gouy (University of Lille and HALMA UMR 8164, France) and Yann Lorin (INRAP – Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives)

Scientific committee: Prof. Philippe Abrahami (University of Lille and HALMA UMR 8164, France), Prof. Eva Andersson Strand (University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and Director of the Centre of Excellence for Textile Research), Prof. Marie Louise Bech Nosch (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), Prof. Frédérique Blaizot (University of Lille and HALMA, UMR 8164), Dr. Pascal Denizart (Director of the CETI, Centre Européen des Textiles Innovants in Tourcoing, France), Prof. Prof. Eric Devaux (Director of the ENSAIT, France), Dr. Audrey Gouy (University of Lille and HALMA UMR 8164, France), Prof. Sandrine Huber (Director of HALMA UMR 8164, University of Lille, France), Yann Lorin (INRAP – Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives). Prof. Isabelle Paresys (University of Lille and IRHIS, UMR 8529), Dr. Corinne Porte (Director of the Archives Nationales du Monde du Travail in Roubaix, France).

International Call “Smart Textiles from Antiquity to Modern Times” – Full Call for Contributions

What is a “visual code”?

How do textiles contribute to identity?

In which contexts can we observe these processes?

Visual codes, which vary with and within different societies, comprise aspects of the external appearance of people that are communicated non-verbally. This includes clothing (also shoes and headgear) as well as hairstyles and various accessories.

Are there rules within a specific society that prescribe or even prohibit certain items of clothing, colours, raw materials (e.g., fur, silk), costume components, accessories for certain social groups, for men and women or for certain age groups?

In this workshop, we will work on theoretical concepts: different perspectives — such as cultural anthropology, material culture studies, social psychology, evolutionary anthropology and modern fashion studies. The discussions include theories on visual coding, body language, fashion theory, gender & age and social hierarchies. The
participants will:

– Receive a reader with 5 selected articles, with which we will discuss the theories;

– Present short statements with case studies from their own research;

– Set the case studies into a context with the theoretical approaches and form ideas on how to include theories in their own work.

For more information on the program, the readings and how to register, check the full call here:

Workshop Call: Theoretical concepts on dress and identity, visual codes in prehistoric and historic societies

We look forward to hearing from you!