The Design Culture Reader [Paperback]

Design is part of ordinary, everyday life, to be found in every room in every building in the world. While we may tend to think of design in terms of highly desirable objects, this book encourages us to think about design as ubiquitous (from plumbing to television) and as an agent of social change (from telephones to weapon systems).

The Design Culture Readerbrings together an international array of writers whose work is of central importance for thinking about design culture in the past, present and future. Essays from philosophers, media and cultural theorists, historians of design, anthropologists, cultural historians, artists and literary critics all demonstrate the enormous potential of design studies for understanding the modern world.

Organised in thematic sections, The Design Culture Readerexplores the social role of design by looking at the impact it has in a number of areas  especially globalisation, ecology, and the changing experiences of modern life. Particular essays focus on topics such as design and the senses,design and war and design and technology, while the editor's introduction to the collection provides a compelling argument for situating design studies at the very forefront of contemporary thought.

Section 1: Materials and Methods  1.Karl Marx (1867) 'The Fetishism of the Commodity and its Secret'.  2. Jonathan Crary (1989) 'Spectacle, Attention, Counter-Memory'.  3. Vilem Flusser (1993) 'About the word Design'.  4. Michael Moon, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, Benjamin Gianni and Scott Weir (1994) 'Queers in (Single-Family) Space'.  5. Pauline Madge (1997) 'Ecological Design: A New Critique'.  6. Hal Foster (2002) 'The ABCs of Contemporary Design'.  Section 2: Actors and Agents  7. Marcel Mauss (1934lÓ{