Reading & Conversation with Author Erin O'Connor

UrbanGlass invites you to an evening with Erin E. O’Connor, celebrated ethnographer of craft and author of the forthcoming book Fire Craft: Art, Body, and World Among Glassblowers (Columbia University Press, August 2025).

In Fire Craft, O’Connor offers a powerful blend of personal narrative and sociological insight as she explores the world of glassblowing from within. Through stories of learning, failure, and transformation, she illuminates the embodied knowledge, collaboration, and meaning-making that define this ancient yet vital craft.

The evening will feature a reading from the book followed by a roundtable-style Q&A — an open invitation to engage in dialogue about the physical, social, and intellectual dimensions of working with glass.

About the Author: Erin E. O’Connor is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. A recognized ethnographer of craft, her work focuses on glass, the arts, the body, knowledge, culture, and the environment. She is currently at work on The Middle Mineral & the Mine: An Ethnogeology of Studio Glass — a sweeping exploration of studio glass through the intersecting histories of art worlds, the mining industry, and the deep time of geology. O’Connor is also a recipient of the Rakow Grant for Glass Research at the Corning Museum of Glass.