Program Overview

Program Overview

The University of Copenhagen offers a course titled "Kunsthistorie: Design og hverdagskultur" (Art History: Design and Everyday Culture). This course is part of the Continuing and Professional Education program and is designed to provide students with a deeper understanding of the historical development of design products and their role in everyday culture.

Course Description

The course focuses on the development of modernist design, postmodern, and contemporary design trends, with an emphasis on the Western cultural sphere from the late 19th century to the present. Students will analyze and discuss design objects in social, cultural, and historical contexts, as well as in industrial and technological perspectives. The course covers various fields, including product design, advertising and communication, consumer culture, urbanity and transportation, workplace, housing and interior, lifestyle, fashion, identity formation, body, and gender.

Course Structure

The course consists of 14 sessions, each lasting 4 hours. The teaching methods include lectures, participant presentations, discussions, fieldwork, and exercises where students work in groups or individually with both reading materials and case studies from fieldwork. The course also includes a writing workshop where students receive peer feedback on their assignments.

Course Materials

The course is based on a digital compendium and draws on a wide range of texts from cultural theory and cultural history, as well as design theory, design history, and design analysis. Some of the required readings include:

• Attfield, Judy. 1990. “FORM/female FOLLOWS FUNCTION/male: Feminist Critiques of Design.”
• Entwistle, Joanne. 2000. The Fashioned Body. Fashion, Dress and Modern Social Theory.
• Featherstone, Michael. 1991. “The Aestheticization of Everyday Life.”
• Shove, Elizabeth. 2007. “The Design of Everyday Life.”

Assessment

The course is assessed through a portfolio consisting of three parts:

1. A video/manuscript and slides for a 5-8 minute oral presentation on the history of an everyday cultural design.
2. A written analysis of an everyday cultural design (8 pages).
3. A discussion of the significance of a design process for an everyday practice based on fieldwork at an institution, company, or location (8 pages).

Course Information

• Course language: Danish
• Course number: HKUK03371U
• ECTS: 15
• Level: Master's
• Duration: 1 semester
• Placement: Autumn semester
• Price: The course is offered as a daytime course through the open university system, and the price can be found on the university's website.

Institution and Faculty

The course is offered by the Department of Arts and Cultural Studies at the University of Copenhagen, under the Faculty of Humanities. The course is taught by Ulrik Ekman.