sp.353 - Notices

SP 353 Technologies and Cultures
Final Exam, Fall 2001

This exam consists of 5 questions that will be weighted equally.

Be sure to support your points clearly with examples from the readings, class discussions, paper research, and/or workshops; we do not want to read vague generalities. Organize your answers the same way you organized your papers, write concise clear English, and write legibly. You are allowed to use 1 page of notes (both sides) for this exam, which you will hand in with your exam. Be sure to write your name on your page of notes.

1. Describe and analyze the value system of a great craftsman. Support your essay with at least 3 examples from the readings
and/or class. Compare your forging experience with the value system that you have described.

2. Analyze two of the attached quotes. Consider the following
questions:
a. Why is each quotation significant?
b. How do they relate to some of the main themes in the units in which they appear?

3. Ask your own question and answer it. We will look at the
quality of both your question and your answer.

4. The craftsmen you read about and heard from all worked or
are working in specific cultures. Select two craftsmen from
different cultures and explain how these cultures influenced their work.

Quotations:

To achieve diversity in all its possible manifestations is the chief reason for continuing the workmanship of risk as a productive undertaking: in other words for perpetuating craftsmanship.

The intense labor, management, commodification, and attentiveness that goes into the making of an obento laces it, however, with many and various meanings.

After the first euphoria (and far more quickly in the case of rice than for other cereals), certain unpleasant side-effects of the "Green Revolution" began to haunt the rice-eating populations of the world, who nevertheless continued gratefully to plant "high-yield" rice.

. . .the backyard charcoal grill offered the convenience of no mess, no pans, and rapid, cooked meals often presided over by husbands who played the role of the great giver-of-feasts-and -provider-of-meat like the chiefs of old. Pork patties cannot be cooked on open grills without falling through. . .

John Harrison's victory over the problem of lubrication by eliminating the problem itself was ingenious, but not typical of his scientific method. His usual approach was to accept the presence of an "enemy" and negate the effect: to cure the symptom, rather than the cause, by compensating for it.

"I worked in iron in the belief that I can say in it anything that I wish. No material is more plastic, more ductile, more expressive. . . It has a beauty and a music in it and every hammer mark reflects the personality of the smith."

Willie's working knowledge, and its role in the community, is like that of the ancient ironsmith. The unity of the knowledge is complete. . . Repair is only an extension of making. . .

Nevertheless, modern science at least reveals that, contrary to popular belief, Japanese sword manufacture is not alchemy but craft.