The University of Hertfordshire’s School of Creative Arts welcomes Dr. David Brody, Associate Professor of Design Studies, as the Theorizing Visual Art And Design’s (TVAD) Visiting Researcher this month. TVAD, which functions as a trans-disciplinary research group, is primarily concerned with the relationship between text, narrative and image, and research degree students at the university will be afforded the unique opportunity to attend special seminars with Professor Brody.
In addition, Professor Brody will discuss his past work, Visualizing American Empire: Orientalism and Imperialism in the Philippines, an exploration into how visual imagery and design shaped the political and cultural landscape between two cultures and Design Studies: A Reader (co-edited with Hazel Clark), which contains a comprehensive and diverse range of perspectives on design. Professor Brody will also discuss his newest project in the works, Do Not Disturb: Design, Hotels, and Labor, which will explore hotels, their interior design and the design of the labor which keeps them going.
As another part of his visit, Brody will deliver the first Critical Dialogues lecture for the 2011/2012 series on Tuesday, October 18th. The objective of Critical Dialogues is to explore how contemporary art interacts with the social, political and philosophical dimensions for the contemporary world and where it intersects with other disciplines and discourses. For his lecture, entitled “Disordering Design,” Professor Brody will assess the design and material culture as an agent that can reinforce power hierarchies, using the examples of American empire and the hotel industry.
