CALL FOR PAPERS

Design History Futures – Sustaining What?

An issue of Design Philosophy Papers to be edited by Karin Jaschke, Paul
Denison and Tara Andrews in association with Anne-Marie Willis

SUMMARY:
Modern lifestyles and material cultures made possible by design are now
being seen as so deeply implicated in unsustainability that a re-writing of
design history seems inevitable.

Conversely, a revitalised, critical design history could play a major role
in providing an intellectual framework for new, redirective design practices.

How does awareness of sustainability and unsustainability affect design
history? 
What does this mean for specific areas of research: histories of product
design, architecture, fashion, graphics, material and visual cultures, etc.?
What part has design history itself played in the development of
unsustainability?

Submit 200 word abstracts by 12 Dec 2008 to:
Anne-Marie Willis, Editor, Design Philosophy Papers  [log in to unmask]

FULL TEXT:
Design history has evolved over recent decades through engagement with
matters of concern like class, gender and the postcolonial. In turn,
critical design histories have contributed to new ways of understanding the
world around us. Today, the matter of concern is sustainability: an issue
that is almost too large in its implications to be grasped outright. It
presents a challenge that is new in scope and kind. Design history cannot
remain unaffected by this.

Design historians are well aware of the role design has played in making the
modern world. Yet the modern lifestyles and material cultures made possible
by design are now being seen as so deeply implicated in unsustainability
that on these grounds alone a re-writing of design history seems inevitable.
Modes of practice and thought, social and economic contexts, and the
ideological premises of past design practice need to be addressed anew. 

At the same time, this raises the question of design history's own
disciplinary past, present, and future. Design histories have used and
perpetuated ways of thinking that have fed directly into current,
unsustainable design practice, including notions of progress, newness, and
obsolescence, 'iconic design', and the star-designer or 'starchitect'.
Historians of design thus need to consider the implications of their
value-systems.

Climate change, resource depletion, and pollution will lead to major changes
in modern lifestyles in the near future. Design has a major ethical and
professional stake in this transition and the direction it will take. 

We propose that a revitalised, critical design history could play a major
role in providing an intellectual framework for new, redirective design
practices. Thus we ask the following questions, and invite papers that
address them:

•	How does awareness of sustainability and unsustainability affect design
history? 

•	What insights could be gained by re-reading design's past through
perspectives of sustainability and unsustainability?

•	Could design history contribute to a more developed understanding of
sustainability and unsustainability?

•	Are there past writers who have already done this? Is their work relevant
to today?

•	Have we overlooked historical subjects that are of importance to the
sustainability debate? 

•	What part has design history itself played in the development of
unsustainability?

•	Do we need radically new ways of thinking to understand the role that
design has played in bringing about the present unsustainable state of the
world?

•	What does this mean for specific areas of research: histories of product
design, architecture, fashion, graphics, material and visual cultures, etc.?

•	Is there an ethical imperative for historians to reconsider their
disciplinary approach with view to sustainability? Does this imperative
undercut notions of impartiality?

•	Where are the blind-spots in design historiography that may hinder a real
rethinking of design history?

•	What methods and approaches from other disciplines or traditions of
thinking could offer ways of understanding our unsustainable past that might
be relevant to the historical study of design?


SCHEDULE
Abstracts (200 words) due by: 12 Dec 2008
First drafts of papers due by: 13 March  2009
Final drafts due by: 24 April 2009
Publication online by: May 2009

SUBMIT ABSTRACTS TO:
Anne-Marie Willis
Editor, Design Philosophy Papers
[log in to unmask]     
www.desphilosophy.com