Craft Knowledge at the Interface of Written and Oral Cultures

How did artisans in late imperial and Republican China reproduce technical knowledge, what role did writing play in knowledge reproduction, and to which extent did literate and oral knowledge cultures meet? This article looks at these questions from two angles: it reconstructs tacit, oral, and literate modes of knowledge transmission among artisans (in particular papermakers) in the nineteenth and twentieth century, and it looks at the production, circulation, and potential impact of texts dealing with artisanal techniques.