Encountering Things: Design and Theories of Things

(Paperback)

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Description

Encountering Things brings together leading design scholars to explore the relationship between thing theory and design, exploring production processes and offering an engaging, theoretical perspective about the social and cultural lives of objects. Focusing on the themes of process and product, the contributors investigate the productive interplay between the activity of design and the objects that design uses and produces. Chapters span the design disciplines and essays examine the processes by which objects, things, and artifacts are made; the lives of design objects; and things in their cultural contexts. Theoretical discussion is encouraged by in-depth case studies of things themselves. Each chapter includes an informational sidebar per essay and a useful glossary of key terms.

Reviews

[The] in-depth discussion on the location of material culture (s) in human-thing relationships and thus in society makes the book extremely worth reading. * H-Soz-Kult (Bloomsbury Translation) *
This collection of essays is the first major effort to connect the renewed interest in materiality with an earlier tradition of object studies in order to examine how these fields connect with design theory and practice. The essays in the collection are wide-ranging, multidisciplinary and mutually enlightening. This book will be of great interest to scholars in design studies, social theory and cultural criticism. * Arjun Appadurai, Paulette Goddard Professor of Media, Culture, and Communication at New York University, USA *
The essays in this book make a cogent argument for stronger engagement between design studies and the theory of things. Design scholars and practitioners can profit greatly from them. * Victor Margolin, Professor Emeritus of Design History at the University of Illinois, Chicago, USA *

Author Bio

Leslie Atzmon is Professor of Graphic Design and Design History at Eastern Michigan University, USA. Prasad Boradkar is Associate Professor and Coordinator of the Industrial Design Programme at Arizona State University, USA.