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

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*
*
*
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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