Dear List Members

We are seeking an author to contribute a chapter that focuses on transnational exchanges and examines case studies that relate to modern living from the Middle East, China (except Hong Kong) or Taiwan for the book Design and Modernity in Asia: National and Transnational Exchanges 1945-1990.

Deadline for the full chapter draft: 10 Dec 2019
Word limit: 6,000 words
Publisher: Bloomsbury

Email the Editors with a title and 200-word abstract, your full name and affiliation by 15 November 2019
Dr Yunah Lee - [log in to unmask]
Dr Megha Rajguru – [log in to unmask] 
 
Book summary and rationale 
The proposed volume showcases a collection of new critical essays that examine designs for modern living in Asia between 1945 and 1990. It develops from the international conference held at the University of Brighton (10-11 April 2017), Modern Living in Asia 1945-1990. It explores the meanings of modern living in various locations in Asia by addressing histories of Modernism, the discourse of modernity and processes of modernisation in national and transnational contexts through four thematic strands. In the first section, it brings together new research by international scholars who examine the ways in which nation-states employed modern design in domestic and public spheres, producing national identities. In the second section, the essays trace transnational networks of designers and flows of design ideas within Asia, and/or Europe and the US. In the third part, it investigates the production of discourses of modern living through design magazines, calendars and in literature. In the fourth and final section, the essays examine designs of public spaces intertwined with collective identities, notions of citizenship and modern values.
 
The particular focus of the book is on post-civil war and postcolonial years in Asia, a period that has received little scholarly attention, especially in developing multidisciplinary knowledge on approaches to and designs for modern living. As such, it examines exhibitions, architecture, modern interiors, printed ephemera, literary discourses, healthy living movements and transnational networks of modern designers. Crucially, it develops methodological approaches to studying the histories of modern design in Asian contexts. Several essays also address the ways in which marginalised individuals and groups, such as those from disadvantaged economic backgrounds and women, encountered or experienced modernity, an area of study that has been largely overlooked in previous scholarship.
 
This book approaches Asia critically as a geo-political constructed space in relation to Europe with the aim to develop an understanding of histories of Modernism and modernity beyond the Euro-American context. Contexts of regional politics, processes of decolonisation and international development, and expansion of global networks of design, call for a comparative study of modern designs for living within Asia. In the midst of acutely debated theoretical positions of globalisation, transnationalism and multiple modernisms by Arjun Appadurai (1996), Homi Bhabha (1994), Shumei Shi (2013) and Duanfang Lu (2011), the book explores cultural flows beyond borders (national, regional and political) that informed notions of modern living. It interrogates self-orientalist ideologies that contributed to the production of national identities, whilst also examining the process of looking outwards and embracing internationalism.
 
Most previous research on Modernism and modernity in Asia focuses on certain geographical pockets and within particular national boundaries such as China, India and Japan. This book expands the discourse of Modernism to include geographical areas or countries in Asia that have been under-explored or entirely ignored in scholarly debates such as Bangladesh, Iran, Korea and Turkey. The newly unearthed histories complement and/or challenge the existing paradigm of Modernism debates. Developed from extensive primary research and strong case studies, each essay in this book illuminates commonalities and particularities of the trajectories of Modernism and notions of modernity, their translation and manifestation in Asian living.
 
 
Best wishes,
Megha
 
-- 
Dr Megha Rajguru
Senior Lecturer, History of Art and Design
School of Humanities
10-11 Pavilion Parade
Brighton
BN2 1RA
01273 641466
@MeghaRajguru
https://research.brighton.ac.uk/en/persons/megha-rajguru
Trustee and Teaching & Learning Officer (including Essay and Design Writing Prize), Design History Society

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