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I might go to these - they are free to the public. Laika, it might be worth checking out for your research as well.</p>
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http://www.newschool.edu/observer/in...igner_Humanity</p>
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</p><h1>ARJUN APPADURAI TO DELIVER TWO LECTURES ON ?DESIGNER HUMANITY?: FEBRUARY 7 AND MARCH 26</h1>
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In
a pair of lectures on ?designer humanity,? Arjun Appadurai, the John
Dewey Distinguished Professor in the Social Sciences, will explore how
the social context of design illuminates the design of social contexts.
Both lectures are free and open to the public.</p>
The
first lecture, ?How Objects Seek Meaning? will be held on Wednesday,
February 7, 4:30?6:00 p.m., in Tishman Auditorium, 66 West 12th Street.
Appadurai will address how design creates new relationships among
objects, giving objects opportunities to expand their collective
meaning and impact.</p>
The second lecture
?The Design of Social Forms? will be held on Monday, March 26,
6:00?7:30 p.m., in Wollman Hall, 65 West 11th Street, 5th floor (enter
at 66 West 12th Street). Appadurai will look at how design today can
offer tailor-made forms of life and consumption, as shown by the
ascendancy of designer drugs, designer foods, and designer bodies. This
growth is often understood as decadence, narcissism, and
status-seeking, but it also serves as a salient reason for defending
socially responsible design?creating contexts and places where we can
imagine better ways to be human in a world of scarcity, risk, and
violence.</p>
Both lectures are based on
the assumption that objects have a social life of their own and that
new technologies blur the lines between living and non-living things.
This approach opens new perspectives on how design encompasses both the
individual creation of objects and the collective creation of
environments and social worlds through urban planning, engineering, and
public policy.</p>
Appadurai has a long-standing interest in the world of products, objects, and commodities, first seen in his edited volume, The Social Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective
(Cambridge, 1986). Since then, he has writen on media, cultural trends,
and consumerism in the context of globalization, especially in emerging
societies like India. He has a special interest in urban life and is
currently working on the transformation of advertising in the context
of major changes in consumer knowledge and choice. He has lectured
widely to groups of planners, architects, designers, and social
scientists in such world cities as Paris, Buenos Aires, Rio De Janeiro,
Vienna, Mumbai, Amsterdam, and New York. He has taught at the
University of Pennsylvania, the University of Chicago, Yale University,
and The New School.</p>
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