Seri-Technics : historical silk technologies

Abstract

This volume presents historical case studies that, sampled from diverse cultural regions, exemplify major technological processes and practices of silk textile production. Based on the growing research on silk’s cultural, social, economic, and intellectual implications, we suggest that it is time to return our view to technology and provide a fresh look at the way in which technical processes have been historically shaped to define the identity of silk. While many insects produce silken thread, and varying technical setups can be used to create cloth, historically silk is produced through distinct sets of technological attributes, sociocultural practice and “principles of action.” We suggest calling this technical system that generated ideas about silk a form of textile seritechnics following Francesca Bray’s reinterpretation of Lewis Mumford’s concept. Bray used technics as a heuristic in the study of societies and technical change to unfold how a technical system produced social categories of gender and “hierarchical relations in general.”