Dear Terry:
I am not sure that your latest screed against design history is simply a provocative challenge to engage in a debate or whether it is a deeply held value of yours. I suspect the latter because you have gone to considerable effort to delineate it and demonstrate the irrelevance of history to any number of fields. The first thing I can say is that this is a highly irresponsible position for a senior scholar in the design field to take, given the considerable number of younger scholars and doctoral students on this list. What are they to think of a senior scholar espousing such a poorly thought out and ultimately destructive position. Firstly, I can say that I don't believe that you know much about design history. In all my years in the field, I have never seen you at a design history conference and I would challenge you to name five to ten well recognized studies in the field. Given that, it seems odd that you would be so quick to dismiss history. Second, your position sounds scientistic in that you appear to recognize knowledge as exclusively instrumental rather than formative of a world view. If one follows your theory farther, it would seem that it was not useful to read literature except for pleasure rather than edification. And incidentally, you are dead wrong about the absence of art history in art curricula. With the exception of a few programs in visual culture, I can't think of any that would recommend dropping art history. My biggest complaint about your post is that you are shooting from the hip with little knowledge to back you up? Why should any design educator take you seriously when you are prone to make radical pronouncements with no substantial grounding? In this world anyone can say anything but the difference between responsible and irresponsible pronouncements does become evident. I suggest that yours fall in the category of irresponsible.
Victor
Victor Margolin
Professor Emeritus of Design History
Department of Art History
University of Illinois, Chicago
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