Hi Rosann:
The point is not that one person or several will do the definitive critical mapping of design's and design research's history but that everyone who teaches should develop a sense of what the key literature in the field has been and is. Thats how most fields work. Certainly you can ask any art historian, sociologist, or political scientist what are the important texts in their field and they can tell you. If nobody knows that in the design and design research fields, then I suggest that lots of people dig in and discover key texts for themselves. I was thinking today about jazz musicians. I can't imagine that you would meet a jazz musician today who had never heard of Charlie Parker or who had never listened to his music. Or to Sonny Rollins, Horace Silver, Chick Corea, or Pat Metheney. Maybe some straight ahead players have not heard of Peter Brotzmann but I would say that they should listen to him too. I have just bought a book about wikinomics. Maybe this is a grand wikiproject for the field.
Victor
Victor Margolin
Professor Emeritus of Design History
Department of Art History
University of Illinois, Chicago
On Nov 2, 2011, at 7:00 PM, PHD-DESIGN automatic digest system wrote:
> Date: Wed, 2 Nov 2011 13:21:50 +0000
> From: Kevin Walker <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Gunther Kress
>
> Gunther is a colleague and is deeply concerned with design, in the context of the social semiotics he pioneered with Theo Van Leeuwen, and methods of multimodal analysis with Carey Jewitt. I haven't written a paper about his work but several of my students are applying his ideas to analyse things like wayfinding systems, construction sites, and schools. I did publish an interview with him which I hope gives a simple introduction to his work:
>
> http://www.exhibitresearch.com/cms/?q=node/1241
>
> I would also recommend his book with Theo, Multimodal Discourse, which addresses design directly.
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