Includes bibliographical references and index.

General Introduction / Livingstone and Petrie -- Pen and Kiln: a brief overview of modern ceramics and critical writing / Garth Clark -- Section One: Ceramics: Materiality and Metaphor. Section Introduction / Livingstone and Petrie -- Why are ceramics important? Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Clay as elemental wholeness / Kenneth R. Beittel -- The existential base / Philip Rawson -- Appreciating ceramics or so much more than just an egg cup or a milk jug / Ian Wilson -- Containers of Life: Pottery and Social Relations in the Grassfields (Cameroon) / Silvia Forni -- Ceramics and art criticism / Janet Koplos -- Death and Clay: Cultural and personal Interpretations in ceramics / Christopher Garcia and Tomaru Haruna -- Ceramics and metaphor. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Heart like a wheel: What is Hollywood telling us about working with clay? / Sarah Archer -- Analogy and metaphor in ceramic art / Philip Rawson -- Metaphors, Myths and Making Pots / Laurel Birch Aguilar -- Sculptural Vessels across the great divide: Tony Cragg's Laibe and the metaphors of clay / Imogen Racz -- Section Two: Ceramics in Context. Section Introduction / Livingstone and Petrie -- Historical Precedents. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- The function of decoration: Wedgwood / Herbert Read -- The Arts and Crafts Movement: GB, USA, Germany and Austria, Scandinavia, The Netherlands, Hungary and Italy / Emmanuel Cooper -- A Matter of Tradition: A Debate Between Maguerite Wildenhain and Bernard Leach / Brent Johnson -- Contemporary design of the 1950s: Rie and Coper in context / Lesley Jackson -- Studio Ceramics. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Studio Pottery / Tanya Harrod -- Towards a standard / Bernard Leach -- Towards a Double Standard? / Edmund De Waal -- Re/inventing the wheel: the origins of studio pottery / Julian Stair -- The Archie Bray Foundation: A Legacy Reframed / Patricia Failing -- Studio Ceramics: The end of the story? / Jeffrey Jones -- Sculptural Ceramics. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- A Rough Equivalent: Sculpture and Pottery in the post war period / Jeffrey Jones -- California (Funk) / Scott A. Shields -- Cooled Matter: Ceramic Sculpture in the expanded field / Mitchell Merback -- The New Ceramic Presence / Rose Slivka -- Metamorphosis: the culture of ceramics / Martina Margetts -- Antony Gormley in conversation with James Putnam / James Putnam -- Ceramics and Installation. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Ceramics and Installation / Emma Shaw -- Ceramic Installation Towards a self/definition / Ruth Chambers -- Multiplicity, Ambivalence and ceramic installation art / Glenn R. Brown -- Theoretical Perspectives. Introductory Summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Reconsidering 'The Pissoir Problem' / Bruce Metcalf -- The Modern Pot / Glenn Adamson -- Social Complexity and the historiography of ceramic / Paul Greenhalgh -- Speak for yourself / Edmund De Waal -- Object Theory / Paul Mathieu -- Between a toilet and a hard place / Garth Clark -- Conceptual and post studio practice. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Manufacturing Validity: the ceramic work in the age of conceptual production / Lizzie Zucker Saltz -- On Dirt / Ingrid Schaffner -- Contemporary Clay / Clare Twomey -- Elastic/Expanding; Contemporary Conceptual Ceramics / Jo Dahn -- Extending Vocabularies: Distorting the ceramic familiar--clay and the performative 'other' / Andrew Livingstone -- ...And into the Fire: post studio ceramics in Britain / Glenn Adamson -- Section Three: Key Themes. Section Introduction / Livingstone and Petrie -- Gender, Sexuality and Ceramics. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Gender, Identity and studio ceramics / Moira Vincentelli -- Queering the Museum / Matt Smith -- The Personal Political Pots of Grayson Perry / Louisa Buck & Marjan Boot -- Identity and Ceramics. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Body language: ceramics to challenge the white world / Ruth Park -- Rubber and Clay: South African material 'aftermodern' / Elisabeth Perrill -- Plunder Me Baby--Kukuli Velarde and the ceramics of Taiwan's first nations: Virtual Ventriloquism as articulated in the 2014 Taiwan Ceramics Biennale / Wendy Gers -- Image. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Ceramics and painting: an expanded field of enquiry / Veronika Horlik -- Paul Scott's Confected landscapes and Contemporary Vignettes / Amy Gogarty -- The body. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Embracing Sculptural Ceramics: a lived experience of touch in art / Bonnie Kemske -- Vicious Figurines: Penny Byrne's Ceramic Advocacy / Inga Walton -- The Figurative Impulse in Contemporary Ceramics / Peter Selz -- Ceramics in education. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- The influence of educational institutions on contemporary ceramics / Andrea Gill -- The Digital Future: Reimagining Ceramic Education in the 21st Century / Holly Hanessian -- Ceramics, industry and new technologies. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Transitions: A brief history of Modern Ceramics / Marek Cecula -- National Identity and the problem of style in the post-war British ceramics Industry / Graham McLaren -- Continuity or Collapse: Ceramics in a post-industrial era / Jorunn Veiteberg -- The UK marketing strategy in response to globalization c1990-2010 / Neil Ewins -- Meta-making and me / Ingrid Murphy -- Museum, site and display. Introductory summary / Livingstone and Petrie -- Museums and the interstices of domestic life: Re-articulating domestic space in contemporary ceramics practice / Laura Gray -- The museum as medium specific muse / Ezra Shales -- Environment, art, ceramics, and site specificity / Brad Evan Taylor -- When forms become attitude--A consideration of the adoption by an artist of ceramic display as narrative device and symbolic landscape / Mike Tooby -- Why Clay? / James Beighton and Emily Hesse -- Civic ceramics: shifting the centre of meaning / Natasha Mayo and Melania Warwick -- Ceramics as an archaeology of the contemporary past / Christopher McHugh -- Re-defining ceramics through exhibitionary practice / Laura Breen.