School of Humanities & Cultural Studies Prof Talk Series: Dr. Crystal Lake, “Needlework Verse”

Dr. Crystal Lake's Prof Talk discusses needlework samplers in the 18th century, related to her essay, “Needlework Verse,” which first appeared in Material Literacies: A Nation of Makers, 1660-1820 in 2020 and recently released in paperback on Sept 8th. 

In “Needlework Verse,” Dr. Lake looks at hundreds of embroidered samplers in order to derive a data-driven account of which literary texts were most frequently transcribed onto fabric with thread and needle between 1650 and 1830. In so doing, she discovers an alternative canon of popular literature—a canon that it is not only surprisingly feminist in its politics but also avant-garde in its aesthetics. Lake’s talk is part of a larger project that offers a new history as well as theory of reading by recovering the “literary crafts" produced by eighteenth-century readers.