module specification

Critical and Contextual Studies 1 is an interdisciplinary module taught across all disciplines in the AAD 3D subject area, including Fashion, Jewellery and Accessories, Furniture and Product Design, Furniture, Textiles and Fashion Textiles. The module aims to orient and critically engage students in the history and theory of their respective disciplines, their scope, conventions, and broader social and material context in culture and contemporary practice.

The module helps students to reflect on what they see, and to read connections between different ideas that have shaped their discipline. In particular, the module investigates how thinking and articulating ideas about practice in their field might be framed – for example in relation to history, the economy, society and the environment, or through theory and practice.

The module introduces students to a range of academic skills needed to produce a graduate-level study in their final year. It helps students to develop their own interests, and to reflect on and take responsibility for the development of their own learning. This includes surveys in the history of their discipline, research and writing workshops, seminars, library sessions, visits and tours in addition to guided independent learning.

Pre-requisite of equivalent of standard University entry requirements in a related subject.

The following themes and activities are indicative, and may change from year to year.

The Everyday

This area of study asks students to reflect on the objects with which they surround themselves and how those help shape their identities. The focus here is on the weekly blog activity: students will be asked to bring in an artefact or an image each week and to write about it, drawing on information and ideas provided in lectures, seminars and in their self-directed study undertaken in preparation for each weekly session. There will also be a number of visits and walks, using London as an extended classroom. All of this will increase students’ confidence in discussing and writing about familiar things, but interrogating them by using new ideas, concepts and histories. Lectures will provide generic materials on that week’s theme, which students will then discuss in discipline-specific groups, often using readings tailored to their specific disciplines. Study skills, focused around the assessment, will be embedded in the weekly seminar activities.

Design in London

Students (with guidance) will select a designed artefact that they can visit, handle or see in person in London and research and analyse the object and its context. They will present their findings in a short case study demonstrating their awareness of the personal, social, historical, political, economic or other context of the chosen artefact.

LO 1-6

Scheduled teaching ensures that independent study is effective and addresses the learning outcomes and assessment tasks. Students are expected to, and have the opportunity to, continue with their studies outside of scheduled classes. There will be a range of learning strategies deployed and individual learning styles will be accommodated. The module’s learning outcomes, its contents and delivery, have been scrutinised and will be regularly reviewed to ensure an inclusive approach to pedagogic practice.

The module and course utilise the University’s blended learning platform to support and reinforce learning, to foster peer-to-peer communication and to facilitate tutorial support for students. Reflective learning is promoted through assessment items and interim formative feedback points that ask students to reflect on their progress, seek help where they identify the opportunity for improvement in learning strategies and outcomes, and make recommendations to themselves for future development. Throughout the module, students build a body of work, including reflections on progress and achievement.

The School’s programme of employability events and embedded work-related learning within the curriculum supports students’ personal development planning. Through these initiatives, students are increasingly able, as they progress from year to year, to understand the professional environment of their disciplines, the various opportunities available to them, and how to shape their learning according to their ambitions.

On successful completion of the module students will be able:

1. to use selected information retrieval systems effectively and develop appropriate methods for collecting, organising and deploying knowledge;
2. to read, analyse and interpret at a basic level different kinds of written texts and other key sources of documented knowledge, such as recorded sound or images, objects and artefacts;
3. to demonstrate familiarity with the scope of their discipline and its and some of its broader ethical, historical, social, cultural, economic and practice-based contexts;
4. to begin to articulate a critical understanding of the objects of their study, using a range of written forms of presentation, noting specific terms, languages, references, genres and audiences;
5. to become aware of the relationship between the theories and practices of their discipline in its creative application;
6. to effectively respond to and reflect upon feedback on their own work in order to develop and improve their learning.

Students receive formative tutorials before submission of final work, and feedback during the course. This helps students to build and improve skills as the syllabus progresses.

Assessments comprise:

1. written assignment/s relating to the theme/s of the module (900–1,200 words);
2. case study (900-1,000 words).

Module assessment criteria:
1. application and engagement;
2. quality of content (research, accuracy, relevance, scope);
3. quality of presentation (English, references, terminology, literacy, protocols);
4. effective structure (clarity, links, synthesis);
5. deployment of critical and analytical skills (argument, interpretation, discussion).

Core Readings
• Clark, H. & Brody, D. (2009) Design Studies: a Reader Oxford: Berg
• Lees-Maffei, G. & Houze, R. (eds) (2010) The Design History Reader Oxford: Berg

Further Readings
• Adamson, G. (2007) Thinking through Craft Oxford: Berg
• Adamson, G. (2013) The Invention of Craft London: Bloomsbury
• Adamson, G. (ed.) (2010) The Craft Reader Oxford: Berg
• Barnard, M. (ed.) (2007) Fashion Theory: a Reader London: Routledge
• Boradkar, P. (2010) Designing Things: A Critical Introduction to the Culture of Objects Oxford: Berg
• Candlin, F. & Guins, R. (eds) (2009) The Object Reader Abingdon: Routledge
• Cheasley Paterson, E. & Surette, S. (2015) Sloppy Craft: Postdiciplinarity and the Crafts London: Bloomsbury
• Craik, J. (2009) Fashion: the Key Concepts Oxford: Berg
• Dormer, P. (ed.) (1997) The Culture of Craft Manchester: MUP
• Hemmings, J. (ed.) (2012) The Textile Reader London: Bloomsbury
• Heskett, J. (2002) Design: a very short Introduction Oxford: OUP
• Norman, D. A. (1988) The Design of Everyday Things New York: Basic Books
• Norman, D.A. (2004) Emotional Design: Why we Love (or Hate) Everyday Things New York: Basic Books
• Palmer, J. & Dodgson, M. (eds) (1996) Design and Aesthetics: a Reader London: Routledge
• Williams, G. (2014) How to write about Contemporary Art London: Thames & Hudson
• Woodham, J.M. (1997) Twentieth-Century Design Oxford: OUP

Journals, Websites and Databases
• Deezeen (web)
• Journal of Design History