by Charley Eatchel ’23 (Dec)
On Friday, September 22nd, the English Department held a lovely launch party for Professor Amy Elkins’s first book, Crafting Feminism from Literary Modernism to the Multimedia Present (Oxford University Press, 2022). The celebration brought together people from across Professor Elkins’s career: from current students and colleagues to alums, family, and grad school friends! After a heartfelt introduction from fellow professor Daylanne English, Professor Elkins presented an overview of her work.
In describing Crafting Feminism, Professor Elkins said, the book “argues for the significance of craft to feminist and queer writing,” and went on to emphasize, “Craft’s subjective, gendered status makes it a rich area for exploring the queer networks and liminal spaces that constitute both maker cultures and the modernist archive.”
She then gave a reading from the book and answered a few questions! When asked about the different crafts she experimented with in the process of writing her book, Professor Elkins spoke about the connection she made with pottery. “M.C.Richards, who’s an amazing poet and maker, who’s also a potter, has this book called Centering, and I’ve been doing pottery and reading Centering in conversation with one another. It’s been the most intense craft practice I’ve had for a while… so pottery has really been this thing that has hung on.”
The night was complete with delicious book cookies (bookies!) that showed off the beautiful cover of Professor Elkins’s wonderful book. It was a lovely night for everyone who came out to celebrate Professor Elkins’s exciting work!