PGDE
5204
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201130
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Faculty:
Sarah Lawrence
This course highlights a number of responses to modernism and modernity, but it examines how, in reaction to modernism's universalizing tendencies, there was considerable tension as attempts were made to synthesize 'modern' and 'British'. In Britain, design responded to global competition, particularly in relation to the economically strong USA, but also Europe both before and after 1945. Of key importance was the role of design as representative and constitutive of 'the maelstrom of modern life'. Design as process, representation, object, and ideology was a critical part of the matrix of twentieth century cultural practices in Britain providing sites for the articulation and representation of identities; national, cultural, sexual, class and generational, and although 'Englishness' brought a distinctive inflection to debates about modernity and design, other identities were emerging and changing.
