Erin E. O’Connor is a world-recognized expert in craft studies. A lifelong maker and writer, she is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Marymount Manhattan College in New York City. Her research specializes in glass, the arts, knowledge, materiality, embodiment, the environment, and ethnographic research. In 2023, she received a Rakow Grant for Glass Research from the Corning Museum of Glass. This award launched her current book project, The Middle Mineral & the Mine, an ethnogeology of studio glass. Her first book, Fire-Craft: art, body, and world among glassblowers (In Press, Columbia University Press) is a sensuous auto-ethnography of becoming a studio glassblower. From the furnaces of empire to the hot bodies of collaboration and love, Fire-Craft interweaves theory and practice to explain the glassblower's commitment to the art of making despite the risk of breaking.
Raised in a family of artists and makers, Dr. O’Connor creates collages, books, shelves, vessels, interiors, and gardens. A first-generation college graduate, she teaches courses serving the Departments of Art, Environmental Studies, and Politics & Human Rights. She is a Faculty Liaison to the college’s prison programs.
