Courses

Design History and Theory is offered at introductory and advanced levels to students across design disciplines. The courses are designed to engage with and reflect upon emergent practices and discourses in contemporary design.

Introduction to Theory and History of Design II

Rethinking the Modern Project of Design

Lecture Series

Heng Zhi

Lately Western modernism and its controversial heritage in the field of design has increasingly come under scrutiny because of its Eurocentric, elitist, and inegalitarian principles. This lecture series introduces and demystifies the modern project of design by visiting some of the key movements such as Bauhaus, Mid-Century Modern, and Scandinavian Modern, which all still have a significant impact on the narrative of design and design history today. The focus is to reconsider and challenge the ideas of aesthetic, technology, and society at the time towards a more inclusive, pluralistic, and ecological context of design. To do so, the lectures consist of two major components: historical inputs and critical reflection. The latter takes place in form of tutorials in smaller groups.

Course language: German

Summer Semester 2024

Theory and History of Design II

Design-topias: Design for the Pluriverse

Pro-seminar

Anna Nagele

In a time characterised by multiple intersecting crises – what tools do we hold as designers to build better futures, meeting needs that are not being met, even exacerbated, by the market? Through this proseminar we aim to conceive design-strategies that make small contributions to enacting alternative presents in our own design-topias. This proseminar explores design as world-making through the lens of critical posthumanism. Critical posthumanism as described by theorists such as Rosi Braidotti and Donna Haraway is becoming increasingly popular in the field of design. Examples from theory, art, design and activism that conceive of the human different to the humanist ideal will inform our discussion. We explore human’s relationship with the non-human (natural and technological), considering how to navigate entangled ecosystems. Rather than dreaming up a future utopia we are going to approach design as a future praxis for the ‘healing of the web of life’, as suggested by the anthropologist Arturo Escobar.

Course language: German

Summer Semester 2024

Material Culture II

Accessing Situated Knowledge through Autoethnographic Research

Scientific seminar

Anna Nagele

This seminar investigates the importance of situated, local knowledge and the turn to first-person research in design. The production of idiosyncratic accounts raises empathy and understanding for how one’s own life is entangled with others and the material world. After establishing theoretical grounding through readings and an active attendance of the symposium ‘On the Seam: Anthropology, Design, and Situated Practices‘ the participants of this seminar will conceive of an autoethnographic research project to investigate the effects of the material world on people, society and everyday life. They will critically engage with tools to access tacit knowledge rooted in personal experiences, intuition and material encounters that resist formal articulation. By blending theory with practice, this seminar highlights the importance of reflection, and respect for diverse knowledge systems.

Course language: English

Summer Semester 2025

Design Anthropology in Practice: Design in Social and Political Context

Lecture series

Alison J. Clarke and Heng Zhi

The RVW lecture series course ‘Design in Social and Political Context’ introduces students across the design disciplines to international, leading ideas and voices in the field of design, curation, design writing, design history, social science and practice exploring design in contemporary theoretical context. This semester’s lecture series will explore the implications of design in relation to the legacies, futures and controversies of development paradigms.

Course language: English

As this is a co-taught course students must register with both Prof. Alison Clarke and Dr. Heng Zhi

Summer Semester 2025 – Clarke
Summer Semester 2025 – Zhi

Kolloquium für Master- und Doktoratsstudierende

Alison J. Clarke

Course language: English

Summer Semester 2025