Cultural Theory Meets Design
This class introduces students to a range of theoretical models useful for framing discussions of design. The aim is to introduce students to the major movements of cultural theory, while also mapping the connections between theory and design. While the two may seem naturally paired, the coupling is rarely ever explicitly stated in writings. In gaining understanding of key terms and figures, students will be able to identify when a theoretical model is in use in a text or another form of criticism and to evaluate its appropriateness, coherence, and value. We will focus on statements of theory as well as examples of writing that comment in some relevant way on the topic, area, or figure under consideration. In this way, students will learn about theory—and be equipped to situate their own interests within larger, ongoing discussions of “culture”—but also be exposed to clear, jargon-free expository writing in this arena. Theories to be discussed include: Postmodernism, Feminism and gender studies, sociological studies of consumption and taste, Marxism, and Semiotics and linguistics.
Sample Assignments Include:
A brief (approximately one-page) writing exercise inspired by weekly readings.
A 1000-word review of/ response to a fairly recent critical publication on any aspect of design. One book to be chosen by each student who will critique the writer’s approach and identify strains of theoretical thought that may or may not be explicit in the work. Suggested reviewing options include: Alain de Botton, The Architecture of Happiness; Matthew R. Crawford, Shopclass as Soulcraft; Sam Gosling, Snoop: What Your Stuff Says about You; John Hendrix, Architecture and Psychoanalysis; William Davies King, Collections of Nothing; Richard Sennett, The Craftsman; Deyan Sudjic, The Language of Things; Rob Walker, Buying In: The Secret Dialogue between What We Buy and Who We Are; something by Sherry Turkle; the short works of Leonard Koren, Wabi-Sabi: for artists, designers, poets & philosophers; Arranging Things: A Rhetoric of Object Placement; The Flower Shop: Charm, Grace, Beauty & Tenderness in a Commercial Context.
A one-page write-up suggesting your thought processes and preliminary thinking and identifying the kinds of questions you are looking to answer through your research. During weeks 9 and 10, each student will have a private tutorial consultation to discuss possible theoretical lenses through which to approach his/her personal thesis topic.
On the last two days of class, students will give final 20-minute presentations (scripts should be approximately 8-10 double-spaced pages) to the group on an aspect of the student’s thesis showing a critical awareness of the cultural theoretical issues in their own work. A transcript of the presentation is to be turned in afterwards.
Select Readings Include:
Eagleton, Terry. Literary Theory: An Introduction, 25th Anniversary [3rd] Edition. (University of Minnesota Press, 2008).
Oxford English Dictionary, entries on “Design, noun” and “Design, verb.”
Things. Bill Brown, ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004).
Heskett, Toothpicks and Logos: Design in Everyday Life (Oxford: OxfordUP, 2002).
The Design Culture Reader. Ben Highmore, ed. (New York and London: Routledge, 2009).
Margolin, Victor. “A World History of Design and the History of the World.” Journal of Design History 18, No. 3 (Autumn 2005).
Papanek, Victor. “What is Design? A Definition of the Function Complex.” In Papanek, Design for the Real World (Chicago: Academy Chicago Publishers, 2000 [1985]).
Ruskin, John. The Stones of Venice. J.G. Links, ed. (New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1960).
The Theory of Decorative Art. Isabelle Frank, ed. (New Haven: Yale UP, 2000).
American Artifacts: Essays in Material Culture. Jules David Prown and Kenneth Haltman, eds. (East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press, 2000).
Bourdieu, Pierre. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgment of Taste, trans. Richard Nice. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 1984).
The Design Culture Reader. Ben Highmore, ed. (New York and London: Routledge, 2009).
Smith, Philip and Alexander Riley, Cultural Theory: An Introduction (Blackwell, 2009).
Barthes, Roland. Mythologies, (trans. Annette Lavers, 1984).
Bal, Mieke. On Meaning-Making: Essays in Semiotics (1994).
Sontag, Susan. On Photography. (New York: Picador/Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1977).
Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”
Godfrey, Mark. “Image Structures.” Artforum, February 2005.
Clark, Hazel. Design Studies: A Reader. (Berg, 2009).
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