Leading Readings
The Leading Readings role is intended to give each of you a chance to distill complex ideas into pithy presentation form that is engaging, fresh, and interesting. From the Course Overview: our readings are not inert texts delivering information down from on high. They are meant to be live wires. Their ideas, alternately activated, used, critiqued, or discarded.
At least once this semester, you will be asked to please lead class discussion of one reading. This is a space for you to take ownership of the discussion, and present the ideas of a piece of theory, an essay, or a memoir we may be passing through in an intriguing, fresh way. As you walk through the text, ask what find most interesting. What are the compelling ideas? What tensions are explored? How do you (if you do, in fact) find these ideas relevant for our time? How might they apply to one’s personal, experimental, or professional design practice in 2021? What points of contention, debate, can you tease out and what are some key questions this text opens up for you and for our class?
The idea in leading the reading discussion is to make the reading worthwhile for you and for us. How might one want to talk about a piece of theory at this moment, if not connecting it to our day to day? Remember that there’s no text that cannot be punched up or given life anew: whether by rooting it in the present, reframing its ideas, or recontextualizing it.
UPLOAD DELIVERABLE: If you are a leader for a week, please put your notes or presentation for leading that reading into your individual Drive as a PDF or presentation.
WEEK TWO
Ursula K. Le Guin, “Introducing Myself,“ Left Bank, Vol. 2 (1992) 📗[Linked Here; PDF in Canvas, PDF in Are.na] 📗
LEADER: Kevin
Michael Rock, “Designer as Author,” Eye 20 (1996), adapted multiple times since, including in Multiple Signatures (New York: Rizzoli, 2012) 📗 [Linked Here; PDF in Canvas, or PDF in Are.na] 📗
LEADER: Louis
WEEK THREE
Katie Kitamura and Hari Kunzru, “Language Inc.,” Triple Canopy (Jan 31, 2017) 📕[Linked Here; PDF in Canvas, or PDF in Are.na] 📕
LEADER: Adam
WEEK FOUR
Kay Rosen, “A Constructed Conversation,” Journal #3 Vol. I/ No. 1, 2010, London, reprinted in Jennifer Liese (ed.), Social Medium: Artists Writings 2000–2015 (New York: Paper Monument, 2016). 📕[Linked Here; PDF in Canvas, or PDF in Are.na; Please Read Pages 21 to 25 if using the PDFs] 📕
LEADER: Ásta
WEEK FIVE
Alix Rule & David Levine, “International Art English,” Triple Canopy 16, May/July 2012. 📘[Linked Here; In Canvas] 📘
LEADER: TBD STILL
Hito Steyerl, “International Disco Latin,” e-flux Journal #45, May 2013 [a rebuttal to IAE]. 📘[Linked Here; PDF in Canvas, or PDF in Are.na] 📘
LEADER: Nick
WEEK SIX
James Bridle, “Complexity,” in New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future (London: Verso, 2018). 📘[Linked Here; Or in Canvas] 📘
LEADER: Sabrina
Keller Easterling, “Introduction,” in Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (London: Verso, 2014). 📘[Linked Here; Or in Canvas] 📘
LEADER: Zoey
WEEK SEVEN
Prem Krishnamurthy, Emily Smith, Na Kim, Fikra Graphic Design Biennial 01: Ministry of Graphic Design: read “Statement: Curatorial Approach” and each of the six “Department” statements. 📘[Linked Here ] 📘
LEADER: Ilhee
WEEK EIGHT
Alexandra Lange, “Criticism = Love,” Open Letters, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University (January 31, 2014) 📔[Linked Here; PDF in Canvas, or PDF in Are.na] 📔
LEADER: Katie
WEEK NINE
Teju Cole, “On Photography: Beyond the Light,” New York Times Magazine (February 10, 2019). Online version titled: “When the Camera Was a Weapon of Imperialism. (And When It Still Is.)” 📔[Linked Here; PDF in Canvas, or PDF in Are.na] 📔
LEADER: Forough
READINGS
Readings for Graduate Seminar II will be made available as PDFs, links, or handouts. The readings are intended to provoke ideas, sharpen debate, and provide entry points into the variety of ways you might approach the formulation and writing of your thesis. This page provides a full alphabetized overview of both required and further reading for Graduate Seminar II this semester. These readings are broken down into weekly sections in the schedule. More on the weekly readings can be found in the COURSE OVERVIEW on this site.
Semester Reading List (Including Further Reading and Other References)
- James Bridle, “Complexity,” in New Dark Age: Technology and the End of the Future (London: Verso, 2018)
- Teju Cole, “On Photography: Beyond the Light,” New York Times Magazine (February 10, 2019). Online version titled: “When the Camera Was a Weapon of Imperialism. (And When It Still Is.)”
- Keller Easterling, “Introduction,” in Extrastatecraft: The Power of Infrastructure Space (London: Verso, 2014)
- Experimental Jetset, “Design and Ideology,” in Iaspis Forum on Design and Critical Practice: The Reader, ed. Magnus Ericson, Martin Frostner, Zak Kyes, Sara Teleman, and Jonas Williamsson (Stockholm: Iaspis and Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2009)
- Fikra Graphic Design Biennial 01: Ministry of Graphic Design (Prem Krishnamurthy, Emily Smith, Na Kim, Fikra Graphic Design Biennial 01: Ministry of Graphic Design: read “Statement: Curatorial Approach” and each of the six “Departments” statements)
- Paul Ford, “Against Storytelling,” Track Changes, February 6, 2017
- Maria Fusco, “11 Statements About Art Writing,” Jeff Khonsary (ed.), Give Up Art: Critical Writing by Maria Fusco (Los Angeles: New Documents, 2017)
- Helen Johnson, “Groundwork,” Subtext: Artists and Writing, (Melbourne: Westspace, 2011), reprinted in Jennifer Liese (ed.), Social Medium: Artists Writings 2000–2015 (New York: Paper Monument, 2016)
- Katie Kitamura and Hari Kunzru, “Language Inc.,” Triple Canopy, Jan 31, 2017
- Prem Krishnamurthy, “From Travelogue to Typologue: The Identity of Carnegie Int’l, 57th ed., 2018,” Storyboard, Carnegie Museum of Art, March 13, 2018
- Prem Krishnamurthy, P!DF, (New York: O-R-G, 2017)
- Alexandra Lange, “Criticism = Love,” Open Letters, Graduate School of Design, Harvard University (January 31, 2014)
- Chris Lee, “This Was Written On Stolen Indigenous Land,” Decolonising Design (11 July 2017)
- Ursula K. Le Guin, “Introducing Myself,“ Left Bank, Vol. 2, 1992
- Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction,” Ignota Books, 2021.
- Ellen Lupton, “The Designer as Producer,” in The Education of a Graphic Designer, ed. Steven Heller (New York: Allworth Press, 1998) reprinted in Graphic Design: Now in Production, ed. Andrew Blauvelt and Ellen Lupton (Minneapolis: Walker Art Center, 2012)
- Oli Mould, “Introduction: What is Creativity?,” in Against Creativity (London: Verso, 2018)
- Stephen Poole, “Against Creativity by Oli Mould review — the Dullest of Jobs is Now ‘Creative’,” The Guardian (September 26, 2018)
- Michael Rock, “Designer as Author,” Eye 20, 1996, adapted multiple times since, including in Multiple Signatures (New York: Rizzoli, 2012)
- Kay Rosen, “A Constructed Conversation,” Journal #3 Vol. I/ No. 1, 2010, London, reprinted in Jennifer Liese (ed.), Social Medium: Artists Writings 2000–2015 (New York: Paper Monument, 2016)
- Martha Rosler, “English and All That,” e-flux Journal #45, May 2013
- Alix Rule & David Levine, “International Art English,” Triple Canopy 16, May/July 2012
- Laurel Schwulst, “My website is a shifting house next to a river of knowledge. What could yours be?,” The Creative Independent (May 21, 2018)
- Susan Sontag, “Notes on ‘Camp’,” Partisan Review, Fall 1964
- Jillian Steinhauer, “How to Read International Art English,” Hyperallergic, August 10, 2012
- Hito Steyerl, “International Disco Latin,” e-flux Journal #45, May 2013
Some Key Writing Resources/References
- Jessica Backus, “What We Learned from Writing 7,000 Artist Bios,” Artsy (May 12, 2016)
- “Critical Theory & Analysis: A Very Brief Primer,” The Doctor T. J. Eckleburg Review
- Verlyn Klinkenborg, Several short sentences about writing (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2012) [Excerpt]
- “Notes and Bibliography: Sample Citations,” Chicago Manual of Style Online
- RISD Center for Arts & Language
- Diana Mangaser & Elizabeth Rossiter, “Writing Concisely,” RISD Center for Arts & Language, 2011
- Maria Popova, “James Baldwin’s Advice on Writing,” Brain Pickings, 8 Feb, 2016
- James Somers, “You’re probably using the wrong dictionary,” the jsomers.net blog, 18 May, 2014
- Anne West, RISD Master’s Written Thesis Handbook (Providence: Rhode Island School of Design, 2010)