Discussant: Juliane Noth (Freie Universität Berlin)

Climate change can undermine decades of accumulated energy knowledge, rendering craft practices ineffective or even impracticable. Taking the “dragon bowls” as a case study, the chapter focuses on energy literacy—the conceptualization of acquired knowledge and skilled practice to extract, consume, and transform energy through the process of crafting. Once the world’s largest porcelains, the dragon bowls were made between 1522 and 1620, and from the 1680s onward in the imperial kilns of Jingdezhen, southeast China. The absence of dragon bowls produced between 1620 and 1680 provides a clue to the correlation between climate change and energy literacy. Using visual, textual, and archaeological records, the chapter examines how ceramic artisans in late imperial China managed energy sources and controlled fire behavior—two essential aspects of energy literacy in ceramic technology. In so doing, it sheds light on the vulnerability of energy regimes and the resilience of energy literacy in Chinese crafts.