Utopia: Experiments in Perfection

Fabian Hiscock (Department of History, School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire) reports on Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities Research Institute (SSAHRI) conference, Spirella Building, Letchworth Garden City, 12th November 2015

I attended the “Utopia” as a research student in the History Department looking at early nineteenth century Hertfordshire: not much relationship there with “experiments in perfection”. But it was good to be there. SSAHRI has a remarkable breadth in a single Institute, and part of the fun is exploring some of that breadth. The historians were well represented, certainly, and part of a pretty eclectic mix. And it was with anticipation that we gathered in the notable Spirella Building (an education in itself), took tea (and coffee), and sat back. 

Alan Powers' Keynote, Spirella Ballroom. Photo by Grace Lees-Maffei.

The keynote address was by Professor Alan Powers. He raised the age-old question, now of course of increasing relevance: “Where are the people to go?” New towns were (are) planned on the basis that the old ones have failed, and he offered Milton Keynes as an example: but then reminded us that one can’t really have a night out in Milton Keynes (I’ve never tried, but we got the point – you don’t build a “style” just by erecting buildings). He drew on the demolition of Manchester and London terraces, and of the tower blocks that followed them, the rise of smaller and more open developments. There is no agreement on which is better, but there is a constant striving towards improvment by the well-meaning.

Advertising Welwyn Garden City. Photo by Grace Lees-Maffei.

It was at this point that I realised that a refresher on the original Utopia by Thomas More (1512) would have been handy: where did the term come from that we were discussing, and what did it actually mean? But most of those present will have known well enough. With Alan Powers we were in the “pop” era of the 60s and 70s, and one of the themes that he offered was the (wholly imaginary) outline of 'Civilia', drawn by 'Ivor de Wolfe' on the remains of Judkins Quarry near Bedworth, Nuneaton. This 1960s and 70s resistance to the perceived refusal of architecture to consider the needs of the people reflected the view that 'the city had become too big, and without thought for the people who live in it.' De Wolfe also offered the 'Italian Townscape' as a desirable setting for urban life, and Powers took us through both that and the utterly contrasting 'Potteries Thinkbelt' concept of Cedric Price.

Cedric Price, Potteries Thinkbelt as a peripatetic educational model. Photo by Katrina Navickas.

And so we came to the Garden City. It was no coincidence that we were in Letchworth Garden City, a concept of Ebenezer Howard made real in 1903. Its layout consciously provided the workplaces vital to sustainable growth outside the inhabited centre and the city was walkable for all. The role of social visionaries, following John Ruskin and William Morris, in promoting the whole concept of the Garden City to the point of realising ‘Utopia’, (with greater or lesser success) was acknowledged. David Ames of Letchworth Heritage Foundation followed up on Garden City Utopias and Letchworth in particular. 

Planning the first Garden Cities. Photo by Grace Lees-Maffei.

We went on to look at the current work of architects, planners and designers on both micro and macro scales. Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio of the School of Creative Arts revealed the story of Canary Wharf and the impact of post-1980 capitalism on the original concept for redeveloping the declining docklands and Greenwich opposite. We heard an analysis by Dr Pual Cureton (Creative Arts) of the use of space in Welwyn using a GIS tool, which emphasised to me the sheer richness of the techniques now available. We were given a strong reminder by Dr Susan Parham of the Centre for Sustainable Communities of the importance of food production and supply in the success of any settlement, especially when trying to achieve ‘Utopia’, Finally, we had a highly personal account by Dr Ian Waites, of the University of Lincoln, of his early experiences when his family moved from a Gainsborough terrace to a new council estate just outside; ‘Utopia’ depends on the viewpoint of the observer, and if you’re living ‘the concept’ you don’t necessarily share the jaundiced view of the commentator.

Dr Susan Parham, Centre for Sustainable Communities, University of Hertfordshire. Photographs by Grace Lees-Maffei.

We then got to the concepts, in a session entitled ‘Health, place, work, gender and beyond’. I’d never heard of Peter Kropotkin, a contemporary of Lenin, but his influence on the development of Letchworth was presented by Dr Pat Simpson (Creative Arts). Dr Steve Shelley of Hertfordshire Business School took us to Eigg in the Inner Hebrides, via the zero-carbon working environment, giving us a reminder along the way that there is no consensus on a ‘perfect way of living’. This fact was reinforced by Dr Marta Rabikowska (Creative Arts) in her examination of the huge diversity in many communities and the potential of 'participatory arts' in building community relations in a context far removed from the ‘Garden City, a quite different model of Utopia. She was talking about (and showing a film from) Plumstead, and she brought a copy of the book Utopia, signed by members of the Utopia Society, which she invited us to sign also to signify commitment at least to the concept.

Title woodcut for Utopia written by Thomas More. Wikipedia: Public Domain.

Dr Chamu Kuppuswamy (Law School) introduced the very challenging concept of “the Common Heritage of Mankind”, of which the ocean floor is the classic example as captured by the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea. Now it happens that I spent a lot of my career on or in the ocean, but I hadn’t recognised UNCLOS in this context: but if we recognise the concept (which intuitively we probably do), how do we preserve the Common Heritage? And what, indeed, does it require us to include?

Rick Guidice's Utopian illustrations for NASA, in a presentation by Dr Neil Maycroft. Photo by Katrina Navickas.

The wholly-imaginary Utopia’ featured also, or, more exactly, the ‘dystopia’ of the Dune science fiction series by Frank Herbert, in a talk by Alex Anthony-Lewczuk of the University of Lincoln while his colleague from Lincoln, Dr Neil Maycroft, delivered the amusingly-titled ‘Never mind my jet-pack, where’s my four-legged chicken?’ which reviewed a number of visions of the future from the past, and examined the role of design and technology in envisioning and materialising Utopia. The discussion that followed was as wide ranging in scope as the day had been, and tended to confirm the inevitable conclusion: there is no consensus on what constitutes Utopia, only that it can remains a concept, one to be striven for, but not to be achieved.

Prof Carenza Lewis. Photo by Katrina Navickas.

In the closing keynote presentation, ‘Brave new world or toil and trouble? The long view of new towns’, Professor Carenza Lewis suggests that New Towns can be best understood by recognising that they are not, in fact, new.  She drew parallels between New Town developments and features common to earlier placemaking activities. Lewis pointed out that while New Towns care very carefully planned for specific purposes, spontaneous developments can often be successful too, although less secure. New Towns 'materialise the Zeitgeist', she suggested, in their preoccupation with issues such as defence, nation building, feudalism and capitalism.  

Delegates at Utopia: Experiments in Perfection. Photo by Katrina Navickas.

Was it worthwhile? For me, as a newcomer in the field, ‘Yes, absolutely’. The day provided me with an opportunity to gain insight into what goes on in our Institute and indeed our University, and the University of Lincoln. Some of the material presented was highly specialist, some highly technical, and some - to me, at least - impenetrable. But I’d be very surprised if anyone came away with nothing new. And as it happens, I learned a great deal more than that…

Fabian Hiscock, Department of History, School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire.

Lighting, Spirella Ballroom. Photo by Grace Lees-Maffei.

Return visit for TVAD Visiting Researcher 2014-5, Dr Javier Gimeno-Martínez!

Javier Gimeno-Martínez is Assistant Professor at the VU University Amsterdam. He holds a MA-degree in Industrial Design from the Universidad Cardenal Herrera, Valencia (Spain) and an MA-degree on Art History from the Universidad de Valencia. He got his PhD in 2006 from the KULeuven with the dissertation “The Role of the Creative Industries in the Construction of Regional/European Identities (1975-2002): Design and Fashion in Belgium and Spain.” He was a visiting scholar in the department of Design History at the Royal College of Art (London, UK) for the year 2009-2010. Dr Gimeno-Martínez’s research interests encompass design and fashion as related with consumption, gender and national identity. He has been conducting research on the shifting cultural status of industrial design and craft from the 1950s up to today with Belgium as case study, funded by the Research Foundation – Flanders from 2007 to 2010. The culmination of the first three years of this research project was the seventh ICDHS conference “Design and Craft: A History of Convergences and Divergences”, organized in collaboration with Dr. Fredie Floré, which provided the opportunity for an international discussion on regional specificities as well as the impact of global processes of industrialisation. If, until now, design history has been largely dominated by the Western narratives of industrialization, then moving the focus towards non- industrial design practice might bring non-Western scholars to the forefront. Moreover, previously marginalized design histories in industrialized countries can finally get a voice. Dr Gimeno-Martínez was an Editor of the Journal of Design History from 2008-2013 and he is currently co-editing a special issue on Dutch design for that journal.

·        PROGRAMME

     THURSDAY 19^th MARCH 2015

10 am to 12 pm - Reading Group – Gallery Café

Session with TVAD and School research staff and PG students. Texts have been tabled for discussion from Dr Javier Gimeno-Martínez, Dr Barbara Brownie, Dr Steven Adams and Dr Pat Simpson. They are available to participants on request from Dr Grace Lees-Maffei g.lees-maffei@herts.ac.uk

  

1 pm to 3 pm - National Army Museum Project discussion, JGM, BB and SA.

  

3 pm to 4 pm, AB132 – Design Talk: ‘Design and National Identity’, Dr Javier Gimeno-Martínez

What are we talking about when we talk about British design? Or Dutch design? What is produced in the country or what is consumed in the country? Both positions are substantiated by different theoretical approaches. We must be however aware of the implications when using one or another. This talk will elaborate on these theoretical frameworks and how they can contribute to a better understanding of national design.

      FRIDAY 20^th MARCH 2015

11 AM – 4 PM TVAD SYMPOSIUM ‘Design and National Identity’ convened by Dr Grace Lees-Maffei – Room 1A161

11 am – Coffee, Welcome and ‘Introduction: Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in an Age of Globalization’, Dr Grace Lees-Maffei, Reader in Design History, School of Creative Arts, University of Hertfordshire.

Contemporary design is global. Along with international developments in higher education, the influence of post-colonial theory, and intellectual endeavours like ‘world history’, design historians are now writing Global Design History (to use the title of a 2011 edited collection). While the nation state is no longer the only socio-cultural or political-economic unit forming our identities and experiences—if it ever were—this paper examines the value of national frameworks in writing design history and asks whether moves to discard them are premature. Are national histories of design dependent upon outmoded generalisations and stereotypes? Or do they demonstrate cogent frameworks for the discussion of common socio-economic and cultural conditions and shared identities? Globalizing design history involves writing new histories of neglected regions and nations and revisionist histories informed by the findings and methods of new comparative and global histories, of celebrated industrial nations.

11.30 am - What can we learn about research methodology from the sacking of the Bastille: 2-4 pm. Tuesday 14th July 1789? Dr Steven Adams, Associate Dean Research, School of Creative Arts & Head of Research Degrees (Social Sciences Arts and Humanities Research Institute), University of Hertfordshire.

In this brief talk, I want to look at some of the methodological problems encountered in the examination of an historical event, the fall of the Bastille that marked the start of the French Revolution. In an attempt to a raft of set secondary sources on the subject to one side, I turn instead to a range of primary material - textual and material - generated in the weeks after the Bastille's fall, texts and artefacts that defy easy categorisation and perhaps test the boundaries of some normative forms of academic history, art history and design history. We are left, I suggest, with things and writing about things made and written  by citizens struggling to keep pace with the events unfolding around them. In an attempt to begin find a place for myself in these events, I turn to a set of methodological strategies from codicology and cultural studies, to existentialism, 'chronographie' and the study of necrophilia. In a nutshell, the talk attempts to bring some historical and textual fragments into the light in the same way that those who sacked the Bastille, laid its contents out for the comment and inspection of their peers in the days after the 14th of July

12.15 am – Modern Wife, Modern Life: Expectations of the 1960s Irish Housewife, Dr Ciara Meehan, Senior Lecturer in History & Associate Programme Tutor for Humanities, School of Humanities, University of Hertfordshire.

The Modern Wife, Modern Life exhibition opens at the National Print Museum of Ireland.  It explores representations and expectations of Irish housewives as seen in the pages of women’s magazines from the 1960s. The exhibition has been supplemented with domestic objects crowd-sourced from the Irish public. While the objects themselves are not particularly unusual, many of them had fascinating and revealing backstories. These objects are being used to construct a picture of how everyday life was experienced and understood by ‘ordinary’ women in the 1960s.

1 pm to 1.45 pm – Lunch, Provided

1.45 pm - A Special Relationship: The Transatlantic Domestic Dialogue, Dr Grace Lees-Maffei, Reader in Design History, School of Creative Arts, University of Hertfordshire.

Design History has been bounded by national borders, and yet design is local, regional, international, intranational, and global as well as national. In this presentation, I call for transnational design history, using the case study of domestic advice literature, a mediating genre which contains a wealth of information about real ideals of the consumption of design in the home. Just as manners are markers of national identity (in that the people of different countries display different behaviours) so advice literature has been a tool in the formation of national identity. For example, Sarah A. Leavitt (2002) has discussed the role of homemaking literature in the process of Americanization, turning immigrants into American citizens. But while domestic advice books have a normalizing function—a white middle class ideal is published for white middle class readers to follow—mainstream examples have largely failed to recognise the ethnic diversity of US, and UK, society. Furthermore, an insistence on national borders as borders for understanding domestic advice literature has led to erroneous chronologies based on the relatively recent introduction of domestic advice literature into US publishing when compared with its long roots in the European literary tradition. And directly after World War II, historian Arthur Schlesinger regarded etiquette literature as a channel for the maintenance of world peace, in that it could help people from different countries to understand and show respect for one another. Informal manners have been presented as an American national trait, not only in British domestic advice literature with its implied fear of Americanization, but also through claims in US-produced titles of the forging of American manners. The pre-eminent American advice writer, Emily Post. continually adapted her advice to keep pace with the informalization of American society, and yet she was ridiculed by authors of ‘the new hospitality’, Mary and Russel Wright, who saw her not as the arbiter of American etiquette, but rather as a proselytiser for English manners at odds with the needs of mid-century Americans. To understand the importance of domestic advice literature in mediating national identities, we must also recognise the transatlantic development of the genre in a ‘domestic dialogue’ between the UK and the US of several centuries standing.

2.30 pm – ‘A graphic negotiation with the past, present and future. Political devolution and the symbols of the Spanish regions (1977–1991)’, Dr Javier Gimeno-Martínez, VU University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

Political devolution results in administrative institutions that are generally created anew. However, these new institutions try to conceal the brevity of their existence by reusing communal symbols from the past, such as flags or coats of arms. Even when these symbols might objectively carry certain polemical connotations, the weight of tradition can become an opportune tool for legitimating institutions, so that the past is somehow forced to conform to the present. Properly analysing this instrumentalization of historical iconography can pose quite a challenge for both historians and designers. Indeed, it is present-mindedness rather than historical perspective that drives these legitimating processes. This talk analyses the negotiation of signs by the governmental bodies that resulted from Spanish political devolution and their negotiation with both their past under Franco's dictatorship and their future in democratic Spain.  

3.15 pm – ‘Re-packing the nation: The Analysis of Ideological Symbolism in Tourist Advertising for Poland’, Dr Marta Rabikowska, Principal Lecturer in Creative Industries, Leader in Creative Employability, School of Creative Arts, University of Hertfordshire.

Dr Marta Rabikowska will present preliminary findings from her research on tourist advertising campaigns for Poland, issued after 2004 (the date of Poland’s accession to the EU). Rabikowska has published on the history of Polish advertising and the representation of gender stereotypes in Polish advertising before (2003) Rabikowska, M., ‘Female representation and dominant ideologies in Polish advertising’, East Central Europe. Vol. 30, 2, p. 39-61), which research provided the foundation to her analysis of ideological symbolism in tourist advertising affected by the intense migration movement from Poland to the EU countries in the last decade.  In this presentation, she will look into the stereotypical articulations of ‘national pride’ and ‘national treasures’ as examples of establishing a ‘new global identity’ for a nation strongly connected with the past on the one hand, and affected by contemporary migration movement and cultural exchange on the other hand.  An encounter of values and discourses, which takes place in the advertising campaign commissioned by the Polish Tourist Board (2010-2015), will be contrasted with the results of Rabikowska’s research on identity-making processes among Polish migrants living in the UK  (2009) Rabikowska, M.  & K. Burrell, 'The Material Worlds of Recent Polish Migrants: Transnationalism, Food, Shops and Home', in Kathy Burrell (ed.) Polish Migration to the UK in the 'New' European Union: After 2004,Aldershot: Ashgate, pp.211-232; Rabikowska,M.( 2010) ‘The Ritualisation of Food, Home and National Identity among Polish Migrants in London’, Social Identities: Journal for the Study of Race, Nation and Culture.  Special Issue. Ed. by Marta Rabikowska (2010) 16(3), May: 377–398), and other relevant literature on national symbolism and representation of Polish migrants in the Western media. The underlying thesis to this argument is grounded in the concept of re-appropriation of national identity in a changing historical context and in the arbitrariness of representation.

4 pm - Discussion of next steps and farewell.

For more information, contact the TVAD Research Group Leader, Dr Grace Lees-Maffei g.lees-maffei@herts.ac.uk

Creativity as a Research Method

Creative writing as a research method has been already established within critical theory and, of course, literary studies. Nevertheless, I still wonder how findings from the process of creative writing can contribute to other disciplines, like social sciences, politics, cultural studies, or film studies. A recent TVAD talk by professor Michael Biggs regarded the complexity of practice-based research within creative arts, and one of the discussed case studies was a novel, submitted as a PhD, being itself a final result from the research process and the documentation of that process. A novel by proxy represents creative writing. For a PhD it still needs to be accompanied by some form of reflective documentation which subdues to the nature of PhD argumentation. The same with dance, film, or a piece of art 'submitted' as a PhD. The relationship between the 'intellectual' part versus the 'creative' part must be explained in a classical - non-creative form of writing. As professor Biggs admitted this situation is changing as much as our disciplines are changing. the borders between intellectual and creative are more and more blurred. I am very interested in the process of writing per se across different academic disciplines, especially, in how our style of writing represents a particular research paradigm. Although novels and poems are accepted as practice-based research more commonly than not these days (a different question is how they are evaluated by REF), it is not so common to see creatively written articles within non-creative disciplines. There are some interesting examples of creatively-inspired publications within social sciences, like Les Back's famous The Art of Listening and his creative diary online http://www.academic-diary.co.uk/contents.php, or a widely awarded novel by Slavenka Drakulic, 'A Guided Tour Through the Museum of Communism', or Mitchell Duneier' Sidewalk, engaging with the authors' social and political research in an entertaining and compelling way. We are all encouraged to engage our audience (impact) through more emotional and personal means, so our writing becomes more individual and unique, thus breaking through the patterns of classical academic argumentation, inherited from natural sciences, and opening to experimentation. Yet we do not have many pieces out there, which would reflect creatively on non-creative matters. If our research to change the world and especially if it is going to be funded by taxpayers' money, we need to explain ourselves clearly and with no doubts. Policy makers would not like to read novels and poems instead of traditional reports. But why not? Maybe policy makers would benefit from creative writing workshops, singing workshops or reading poetry together? Such a proposal would need to be explained first and predict the outcomes clearly, so no taxpayer's money is wasted. It may happen one day (maybe even is happening somewhere now), that the language of disseminating research findings will have to be based on stanzas and creative narratives, involving sounds and images which are not embedded in Power Point, but produced by a researcher communicating with the audience on more than one - verbal level. It must be happening to a certain extent in communication with audiences and stakeholders with disabilities. How much effort academia undertakes to 'translate' academic books and reports for deaf people or blind people? Such translation deploys non-verbal 'signs' and in that sense encourages creativity. Yet signing and Braille reflect the systematic organisation of words and letters derived from the dominant discourse, so, although not languages but codes, they are verbalised in the intellectual manner analogous to language. Creative articulation of research findings, which takes my attention, would abandon the system of sense and unfold on the level of the senses. For example, an experimental film projected as a final outcome of a project on aging of the current population, or an exhibition of smells as a way of disseminating finding from a project on...pottery, or using colour as a method of identifying our sensitivity to ...urban design. There are project like that, of course, applying creative methods of research and dissemination across all disciplines (it is quite fashionable, in fact), but how such projects engage with writing their findings? Is that writing as creative as the methods applied? How to write about smells and colour and experimentation without falling into total solipsism and unverified subjectivity? Whose experience would we represent when writing? How to articulate what our senses are going through? Using synesthesiae to capture multisensoarial experience seems a bit dated. How else can we capture the impact of non-verbal stimuli in academic writing? I would like to see those smells and colours and images submitted instead of writing. To communicate, would they need to reflect our current intellectual coding like signing or Braille? or could they serve as a trigger releasing some form of 'the unknown', surprise, or even shock. I am not promoting Romanticism with its Platonic methods of truth discovery and sublime, but rather the studies of affect, in which mind and body are working together on equal rights, but not with equal intensity. I suppose I would like to see a new measure in place for the next REF: the ratio of affect. Why? To open to new modes of communication and new modes of impact, which do not know the borders of disciplines or the patterns of thinking traditions. How would such impact be evaluated? Do we need to establish new 'affective norms outside of normativity which affect denies? It will take us some time to answer this question, and while trying we are already discovering new knowledge. PS. I would like to add an avatar with some fragrance representing my intellectual approach here, but my keyboard does not have one (yet).

TVAD Research Group - Plans for 2014

The TVAD Research Group has enjoyed a productive period in the past academic year 2013-14, and looks forward to further development in the current year. Development will focus on two directions: greater collaboration between TVAD’s researchers, and further external collaborations. The former will build on commonalities revealed through the sharing of research in the TVAD Talks series, for example in the shared interest the design event (Kerry Purcell) and the photographic event (Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio) and how the body opposes power (Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio) through undress (Dr Barbara Brownie). Collaboration between TVAD members has also found focus in last year’s Texts/Cities conference convened by Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio and Michael Heilgemeir, which showcased the work of other TVAD researchers among others, including Dr Barbara Brownie and Dr Marta Rabikowska, each with an interest in place and environment. We plan collaborations with the wider University research community via the University’s Centre for Sustainable Communities (particularly research collaboration with the Centre’s Dr Susan Parham), Creative Economy Research Centre and UH Galleries. External collaboration will be boosted when we are joined by our third annual Visiting Researcher, Dr Javier Gimeno-Martínez, working on national identity and globalization in design in the current academic year. TVAD comprises a group of established and emergent researchers and across the constituency; we seek to prioritise quality in our activities and outputs, pursuing publication in the most favourably rated journals in the various fields engaged by TVAD research and seeking strategic conference exposure. As an aid to quality we also plan a reading group, to facilitate peer feedback on work in progress.  

What follows is an outline of the planned work for some of TVAD’s researchers, who were present to represent their research at a TVAD meeting in September 2014. Other TVAD researchers’ work is outlined in the TVAD webpages.

As noted, Dr Daniel Marques Sampaio has been working with Michael Heilgemeir on the Texts/Cities conference last year (which showcased the work of other TVAD researchers including Dr Barbara Brownie and Dr Marta Rabikowska) and a related event in Berlin. A resultant volume of TVAD's online peer-reviewed journal Writing Visual Culture is planned for publication by the end of the current academic year. Michael and Daniel plan to develop the issue as an app to emphasize the visual aspects of the content with enhanced multimedia for the iPad. Daniel will deliver a new paper at the conference 'Photography and Politics: Images of Revolution' while Michael has developed his project 'The Nomadic Studio' into an open wiki and has been liaising with UCL's urban lab.

Dr Marta Rabikowska has focused on fewer targets, centred upon people, environment and discourse. She is interested in working with Michael and Daniel further. She will be presenting her research on the role of reflection at the University's SSAHRI research institute conference Betwixt and Between (October 2014) and at another conference in November. Dr Rabikowska has a book contracted on the topic of visual methods in community which summarises her research over the past six years (Rowman and Littlefield), and she is developing published work on the creative labour of diverse urban communities in London.

Dr Barbara Brownie is working on and with the 'Titles and Trailers' group. She has two books on fashion forthcoming with Bloomsbury and will have two journal articles completed within the next year.

           Polly Palmer is working on a journal article about study experiences out of the classroom and capacity for social and cultural change that this pedagogical practice promises, with reference to regeneration theory. She is contributing a research seminar on the same topic to the TVAD Talks series and is working with UH Galleries on engaging students with the Galleries’ exhibition series.

  

In August 2015, the British Film Institute will publish Dr Mark Broughton’s analysis of the 1981 television adaptation of Evelyn Waugh’s novel Brideshead Revisited. Dr Broughton is working on a new book about screenwriter Nigel Kneale and plans to undertake a new study about the rostrum camera facilitated by external funding.

Dr Grace Lees-Maffei is completing two contracted book manuscripts to be published in 2016: Designing Worlds: National Design Histories in an Age of Globalization, co-edited with Prof Kjetil Fallan (Berghahn, for submission in January 2015) and Reading Graphic Design, co-authored with Dr Nicolas P. Maffei, (Bloomsbury Academic, for submission in June 2015). In addition, she is contracted to write three book chapters for the different large scale book projects on consumption and globalization, home and hospitality and verbal descriptions of furniture respectively. Dr Lees-Maffei has several projects planned for which she will apply for external funding, and a new book project proposal in process.

Watch this space for news of these plans developing!

 

Dr Grace Lees-Maffei
TVAD Research Group Leader.