The article describes the author’s experience of a day-long class in glassblowing at a studio in London. It draws out a number of analytic themes in making sense of the pedagogy and the learning experience. The article also makes explicit comparison with the work of Erin O’Connor, who has also studied glassblowing at a studio in the United States. Conclusions are drawn simultaneously about the stability of the craft and pedagogy of glassblowing, and also about the craft of ethnography itself.
AtkinsonP.DelamontS.WatermeyerR. (forthcoming). Expertise, authority and embodied pedagogy in operatic masterclasses. British Journal of Sociology of Education.
2.
DelamontS.AtkinsonP.BeynonJ. (1988). In the beginning was the Bunsen: The foundations of secondary school science. International Journal of Qualitative Studies in Education, 1, 315-328.
3.
LaytonP. (1996). Glass art. London: A&C Black.
4.
LaytonP. (2006). Peter Layton and friends. Wellington, Somerset: Halsgrove.
5.
O’ConnorE. (2005). Embodied knowledge: The experience and the struggle towards proficiency in glassblowing. Ethnography, 6, 183-204.
6.
O’ConnorE. (2006). Glassblowing tools: Extending the body towards practical knowledge and informing a social world. Qualitative Sociology, 29, 177-193.
7.
O’ConnorErin (2007a) Embodied knowledge in glassblowing: The experience of meaning and the struggle towards proficiency. In ShillingC. (Ed.) Embodying sociology: Retrospect, progress and prospects (Sociological Review Monograph) (pp. 57-81). Oxford: Blackwell.
8.
O’ConnorE. (2007b). The centripetal force of expression: Drawing embodied histories into glassblowing, Qualitative Sociology Review, 3(3), 113-134.
9.
O’ConnorE. (2007c). Hot glass: The calorific imagination of practice in glassblowing. In CalhounC.SennettR. (Eds.) Practicing culture (pp. 57-81). London: Routledge.
10.
SennettR. (2008). The Craftsman. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.