GSMD 502: Contemporary Dialogues Design

This seminar exposes students to critical and theoretical contexts within which their understanding of contemporary design can be provoked. As the traditional discipline expands to include hybrid practices that reform the meanings of culture and society, students are to examine multiple trajectories through which designing can intervene. Through a review of media phenomena, literature and case studies, students will engage critical debates challenging the world as they know it. In addition to required readings, presentations, writing assignments and discussions, each student is expected to demonstrate leadership in debates of choice. Such debates will be shaped around critical engagement with the pivotal case studies that make up the thrust of the course content. Such cases will be chosen for the depth of their examination of social, economic, technical, environmental and aesthetic issues affecting practice into the future. These case debates will enable students to consolidate and extend their knowledge and understanding of design practice as part of a complex and shifting web of cultural, political, rhetorical and technological dynamics.