Skilled Immigrants in the Textile and Fashion Industries

Nazanin Hedayat Munroe is Associate Professor and Director of Textiles at City University of New York, USA. An artist and art historian, she received her Ph.D. in art history from University of Bern, Switzerland specializing in early modern silks, and her M.F.A. in Fiber from Cranbrook Academy of Art, USA. Her research for Sufi Lovers, Safavid Silks and Early Modern Identity received the Henry Wasser Award for Outstanding Research from the CUNY Academy of Humanities and Sciences at CUNY Graduate Center, where she is newly appointed to the Board as Chair of Interdisciplinary Research.

Preface

Part One: Introduction
1. A Brief History of Textile Production and Trade – Nazanin Hedayat Munroe, NYC College of Technology, City University of New York, USA

Part Two: Imported Myths, Imported Moths: Silk Production Across Asia
2. Histories of Silken Skills: Immigrant Sericulturalists in Early Modern South Asia – Sylvia Houghteling, Bryn Mawr College in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, USA
3. Prophets and Caterpillars: The Story of Job and the Social Mobility of Silk Workers and Weavers in the Early Modern Islamic World – Nader Sayadi, University of Rochester, New York, USA

Part Three: Imported Skills: Weaving Specialists Go Global
4 Master Craftsmen in Migration: Safavid Silk Weavers in Mughal India – Nazanin Hedayat Munroe, NYC College of Technology, City University of New York, USA
5. Weaving Andean Textiles on Islamic Looms: The Importation of Skilled Weavers in the Colonial Andes – Maria Madison Smith, Syracuse University, New York, USA

Part Four: Imported Labor: Enslaved and Immigrant Workers in America
6. Clothing the Black Body in Slavery: Stolen Lives and Imported Labor – Wanett Clyde, NYC College of Technology, City University of New York, USA
7. How the Other Half Works: Perceptions and Realities of Immigrant Labor in the New York Apparel Industry – Nazanin Hedayat Munroe, NYC College of Technology, City University of New York, USA

Part Five: Imported Culture: Textile as Tradition in the Diaspora
8. Silk Weaving in the Cambodian Refugee Crisis and Diaspora: Displaced Practice and Identities in the Post-Khmer Rouge Era – Magali An Berthon, Center for Textile Research, University of Copenhagen, Denmark
9. The Evolution of an Identity: Tracing the Trajectory of Sindhi Ajrak across the India–Pakistan Border – Pragya Sharma, Indian Institute of Art and Design, New Delhi, India
Conclusion

Glossary of Textile Terms
References
Index