If Only: design, technology and society
INTERACTION DESIGN THEORY SEMINAR 4th semester
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Readings to be read in advance and preparation of notes.
Session 11 – 13.05 - Commodities Trade India’s shifting place in the world wide web of cotton, c. 1600-1950
Guest Lecture: Prof Dr Harald Fischer-Tiné, Institut für Geschichte, ETH
Details & Readings tba
Session 12 – 20.05 - The Silk Road
Guest Lecture: Mi You, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln
Details & Readings tbaTaking India as its main geographical focus, this lecture will explore the construction and transformation of the world wide web of cotton between the 16th and the 20th centuries. On a more abstract level it makes a plea for a multiperspectival approach to the history of material objects through illustrating how deeply the history of commodities and the history of consumption are tangled up with social and political history.
Readings:
Short Bio:
Harald Fischer-Tiné is Professor of Modern Global History at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH Zürich). He has studied South Asian history, political science and Hindi at the University of Heidelberg (from where he earned his PhD in 2000) and the Central Hindi Institute in Agra (India). He has published extensively on South Asian colonial history and the history of the British Empire. His research interests include global and transnational history, the history of knowledge and the social and cultural history of colonial South Asia. His most recent monographs are: Shyamji Krishnavarma: Sanskrit, Sociology and Anti-Imperialism (London and Delhi, 2014); Pidgin-Knowledge: Wissen und Kolonialismus (Berlin - Zurich, 2013, in German. He has also (co)-edited ten anthologies, the most recent of which are: Anxieties, Fear and Panic in Colonial Settings (Houndmills, 2017); Global Anti-Vice Activism, 1890–1950: Fighting Drinks, Drugs, and “Immorality” (Cambridge, 2016), with Jessica Pliley and Robert Kramm; Colonial Switzerland: Rethinking Colonialism from the Margins (New York and Houndmills, 2015), with Patricia Purtschert; and A History of Alcohol and Drugs in Modern South Asia: Intoxicating Affairs (London, 2013), with Jana Tschurenev.
His articles and book reviews have appeared in many journals including the American Historical Review, Past & Present, Comparative Studies in Society and History, Modern Asian Studies and Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History. Currently, Harald Fischer-Tiné is concluding the manuscript of a research monograph on the history of the American YMCA in South Asia (1890–1960).
Readings to be read in advance and preparation of notes.
Session 12 – 20.05 - Silk Road: Old and New Networks
Guest Lecture: Mi You, Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln
The starting point is the Silk Roads, a network of trade routes and cultural transfer passages connecting Eurasia and the rest of the world. Eurasia is a landmass that embraces a space between Europe and Asia. Albeit simplistic, taking this definition of Eurasia promises an exploratory, open-ended and collaborative journey into a complex way of thinking through old and new networks, which questions existing borders and distinctions in all dimensions such as the geographical, cultural, geopolitical, and social ones – and in turn calls for new connections and pathways across cosmic, geologic, media-theoretical and nomadic dimensions.
Readings:
- Hansen, Valerie. (2012). The Silk Road: A New History. New York, Oxford University Press.
- You, Mi. (2018). Silk Roads, Tributary Networks and Old and New Imperialism. Extra States: Nations in Liquidation. C. Edwards and i. Fokianaki. Antwerp, Kunsthal Extra City.
Short Bio:
Mi YOU travels physically and metaphysically on the silk road. She curated performative programs at Asian Culture Center (Gwangju) and the inaugural Ulaanbaatar International Media Art Festival (2016) taking the silk road as a figuration for deep-time, de-centralized and nomadic imageries. With Binna Choi, she is co-initiator of a long-term research/curation project Unmapping Eurasia (2018-). She is faculty member at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne, and writes on art, performance philosophy and science and technology studies. She is member of Academy of Arts of the World (Germany) and serves as director of Arthub (Shanghai) advisor to The Institute for Provocation (Beijing).
EXPECTATIONS AND GRADING
The seminar proposes a critical conversation, addressing political components of design and their influence on human life. Methods of discussion, observation and critical thinking are practiced throughout.
Grades will be based on the oral and written presentations and on class participation. Contributing to constructive group feedback is an essential aspect of class participation. Regular attendance is required. Two or more unexcused absences will affect the final grade. Arriving late on more than one occasion will also affect the grade.
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