Archive for November 2016

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[ecrea] New book: Hot Metal: Material Culture & Tangible Labour

Wed Nov 30 17:24:23 GMT 2016



Just a quick note to announce the recent publication of my book: Hot Metal: Material Culture and Tangible Labour <http://www.manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781784994341/>, published by Manchester University Press in the Studies in Design & Material Culture Series.

/Hot Metal/is a cross-disciplinary title that sits somewhere between material culture studies, labour history and oral history studies of working life. It focuses on the experiences of workers from the old NSW Government Printing Office (looking at the years 1959-1989), as they shifted from hot metal typesetting and letterpress, to computer typesetting and offset-lithography, and then promptly lost their jobs (under the NSW Greiner government).

Apologies in advance for academic book pricing - not my decision. Book Depository is probably the best bet but even then it's a shocker: http://www.bookdepository.com/Hot-Metal/9781784994341


*Synopsis*
*
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The world of work is tightly entwined with the world of things. /Hot Metal/ illuminates connections between design, material culture and labour between the 1960s and the 1980s, when the traditional crafts of hot-metal typesetting and letterpress were finally made obsolete with the introduction of computerised technologies. This multidisciplinary history provides an evocative rendering of design culture by exploring an intriguing case: a doggedly traditional Government Printing Office in Australia. It explores the struggles experienced by printers as they engaged in technological retraining, shortly before facing factory closure. Topics explored include spatial memory within oral history, gender-labour tensions, the rise of neoliberalism and the secret making of objects 'on the side'. This book will appeal to researchers in design and social history, labour history, material culture and gender studies.


*Table of Contents*

Introduction: labour, design and culture
Part I: Image, space, voice
1. The visual at work: oral history and institutional photographs
2. Spatial and architectural memory in oral histories of working life
Part II: Technological transitions
3. The continuity of craft masculinities: from letterpress to offset-lithography 4. 'Going with the technology': the final generation of hot-metal compositors
Part III: Challenges and creative resilience
5. (Re)making spaces and 'working out ways': women in the printing industry
6. Making things on the side: creativity at a time of institutional decline
7. Conclusion: factory closures, material culture and loss
Index


For review copy inquiries, please contact Bethan Hirst at MUP, (Bethan.Hirst /at/ manchester.ac.uk) <mailto:(Bethan.Hirst /at/ manchester.ac.uk)>.


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