New Course for Spring 2011!!!

Kate Smith, visiting post-doc fellow at the Chipstone Foundation, will be teaching a course next semester on 18th century British design:

Art History 565:

The Idea of Design in Britain’s Long Eighteenth Century

Prof. Kate Smith

Rm. 166, Elvehjem Building (Chazen)

Thursday, 2:00-4:00

Course Description

This course explores “design” as a process, a concept and a form of technology in the context of eighteenth-century Britain. As well as surveying different design styles, this course also interrogates the idea of design as a system of knowledge and a technology of thinking.

Overview

This course explores “design” as a process, a concept and a form of technology. Beginning with an analysis of design in terms of “style” and aesthetics, this course goes on to examine design in the context of eighteenth-century Britain, a context dominated by a new focus on economy, science and the dissemination of knowledge, to view its impact on society and culture at large. It interrogates the idea of design as a system of knowledge and a technology of thinking to assess how the professionalization of design and its increasingly widespread practice affected systems of thought.

The course will teach students to use and interrogate a variety of primary sources including objects, source books, pattern books, drawing books, correspondence and accounts. Students will particularly benefit from first hand interaction with the Chipstone Foundation collection in Milwaukee as part of the course. The course materials also draw on a wide selection of secondary readings covering the work of scholars of eighteenth-century Britain, design studies, material culture, economics, technology and visual culture.