The New School, NYC

Whether by providing agitprop for revolutionary movements, an aesthetics of empire, or a language for numerous avant-gardes, design has changed the world. But how? Why? And under what conditions?We propose a consideration of design as an historical agent, a contested category, and a mode of historical analysis.**

This interdisciplinary conference aims to explore these questions and open up new possibilities for understanding the relationships among design, history and revolution.

Casting a wide net, we define our terms broadly. We seek 20-minute papers that examine the roles of design in generating, shaping, remembering or challenging moments of social, political, economic, aesthetic, intellectual, technological, religious, and other upheaval. We consider a range of historical periods (ancient, pre-modern, early modern, modern, post- and post-post-modern) and geographical locations ("West," "East," "North," South," and contact zones between these constructed categories).We examine not only designed objects (e.g., industrial design, decorative arts, graphic design, fashion) but also spaces (e.g., architecture, interiors, landscapes, urban settings) and systems (e.g., communications, services, governments).And we welcome a diversity of disciplinary and inter-disciplinary approaches.

This conference brings together scholars from the humanities, sciences, and social sciences with designers, artists, and other creators. We hope not only to present multiple methodological approaches but also to foster conversations across traditional spatial, cultural, and disciplinary boundaries.


*We list some possible subject areas below, and encourage you to propose others:
*Design and political / cultural / economic revolutionDesign and the everyday

Design and technological revolutionDesign and government
Design and social movementsDesign and surveillance
Design and historicityDesigned landscapes
Design and empireDesign and the sacred
Design and the avant-garde Design and memory
Design and the print revolutionDesign and philosophy/philosophies
Design and literatureof design
Design and consumerismDesign and the city
Design and scienceDesign and the environment
Design and cyberneticsDesign and the domestic sphere
Design and education

Keynote speaker will be Barry Bergdoll Professor of architectural history in the Department of Art History and Archaeology at Columbia University and the Philip Johnson Chief Curator of Architecture and Design at the MoMA