Schedule

The course structure is a simple one of working week by week through ten artifacts. Each "case study" will develop different aspects of the course's thesis concerning design.

These are the ten artifacts and the themes and questions they raise.

Introduction

1 A Palaeolithic handaxe - we have always been cyborgs

What is a tool? How do people (as a species and in evolutionary perspective) get on with things? What is the relation of tool making and use to reason and cognition?

Wynn, T. 1985. 'Piaget, tools and the evolution of human intelligence'. World Archaeology 17: 32-43.

Latour, B. 1994. 'Pragmatogonies: A Mythical Account of How Humans and Nonhumans Swap Properties'. The American Behavioral Scientist 37: 791-808.

2 The pyramids at Giza - the megamachine and the function of management

The technology and systems that built the pyramids - management systems that equal contemporary systems in their complexity and division of labor.

Kemp, B.J. 1991. Ancient Egypt : anatomy of a civilization. London ; New York: Routledge.

Mumford, L. 1966. The Myth of the Machine: Technics and Human Development. New York: Harcourt, Brace and World.

3 An ancient Greek perfume jar - cutting edge design in the early state

The politics of production and consumption, and relations with technologies of manufacture.

Shanks, M. 1995. 'Art and an archaeology of embodiment: some aspects of archaic Greece'. Cambridge Archaeological Journal 5: 1–38.

Shanks, M. 1999. Art and the Early Greek State: an Interpretive Archaeology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

4 A medieval castle - the nature of military function

Traditional technology and military engineering and the question of function. New perspectives on medieval castle design.

Johnson, M. 2002. Behind the castle gate : from medieval to Renaissance. London ; New York: Routledge.

5 A Wedgwood teapot c 1780 - industrial high-tech

Factory production, high-tech industrial design, the manufacture of taste. Art versus craft. The politics of industrial and craft production. Ornament.

Forty, A. 1992. Objects of desire : design and society since 1750. New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson.

6 The electric light bulb - building technical networks

The intersection of lab research and social engineering, the embedded character of science and technology in heterogeneous webs, the expansion of these in the nineteenth century.

Hughes, T.P. 1983. Networks of Power: Electrification in Western Society 1880-1930. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Hughes, T.P. 1985. 'Edison and electric light' in Mackenzie, D. and Wajcman, J. (eds.) The Social Shaping of Technology: How the Refridgerator Got Its Hum. Milton Keynes: Open University Press.

Hughes, T.P. 1987. 'The evolution of large technological systems' in Bijker, W.E., Hughes, T.P. and Pinch, T. (eds.) The Social Construction of Technological Systems. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.

7 The Computer Mouse - engineering relationships with things

Human computer interaction, human factors research, mechanical engineering and contemporary industrial design.

Interview with Jim Yurchenko (design team for the first Apple Mouse).

Norman, D.A. 1990. The design of everyday things. New York: Doubleday.

Norman, D.A. 2004. Emotional design : why we love (or hate) everyday things. New York: Basic Books.

8 The Sony Walkman - the technical invention of style

Innovation, style, identity and consumer technology.

DuGay, P., Hall, S., Janes, L., Mackay, H. and Negus, K. 1997. Doing Cultural Studies: the Story of the Sony Walkman. London: Sage/Open University.

9 A supersonic aircraft - a case of serious science?

Why aircraft don't fly, but airlines and military organizations do. New techniques of computational design and their implications.

Interview with Ilan Kroo (Stanford Aero-Astro).

Law, J. 2002. Aircraft stories : decentering the object in technoscience. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

10 The BMW Mini - technology, design and the global corporation

Design - some summary comments - Thing theory