Design Studies Forum

UPCOMING EVENTS

College Art Association Annual Meeting, Chicago, February 2010

By the Book: Towards a New Paradigm of Design Studies?

Between October 2008 and December 2009, four major new readers appeared in the field of design studies: Ben Highmore's The Design Culture Reader (Routledge, October 2008, 380 pp.), Fiona Candlin and Raiford Guins's The Object Reader (Routledge, April 2009, 576 pp.), Hazel Clark and David Brody's Design Studies: A Reader (Macmillan, July 2009, 658 pp.), and Grace Lees-Maffei and Rebecca Houze's The Design History Reader (Berg, December 2009, 512 pp.).

Although, as their titles indicate, the four books have slightly different emphases, all are hefty compilations of both historical and contemporary writings on design. All four are also intended to serve as texts for students of design studies, cultural studies, and/or design history.

The panelists for this session are the editors of these four volumes. The editors will be asked to address the genesis, aims, and intended audience of their book. Moreover they will be asked to explain how they chose the readings for their book and how these readings relate to the field as it evolves. For example: What does the nearly simultaneous publication of these four books mean for (or suggest about) the field of design studies? What does it mean that some of the editors (and authors of essays) are art or design historians, whereas others are scholars of cultural studies, science and technology studies, anthropology, English, and rhetoric? To what extent are these four readers "disciplinary" or "interdisciplinary" in emphasis? In short, what do these readers tell us about the current shape of the field of design studies?

session chair Carma R. Gorman

panelists
Ben Highmore The Design Culture Reader
Fiona Candlin and Raiford Guins The Object Reader
Hazel Clark and David Brody Design Studies: A Reader
Grace Lees-Maffei and Rebecca Houze The Design History Reader

Design and the Rhetoric of Democratization

session chair Ezra Shales

panelists
Javier Gimeno Martínez Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, "Reinventing Social Design in 1970s Belgium: Affordable Design is Good Design"
Sandra Alfoldy Nova Scotia College of Art & Design University, "Made in Canada"
Jeff Werner Director of Research, Göteborg Museum of Art, "What’s so Democratic about Democratic Design, anyway? IKEA and Swedish Modern"
Tao Huang Columbia College, "Rogue Design in China and Democratization of Design"
respondent
Jennifer Mikulay Indiana University-Purdue University, "Democratization and Social Media"

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