Classic texts by thinkers from Althusser to Žižek alongside essays by leaders in interaction design and HCI show the relevance of critical theory to interaction design.
Why should interaction designers read critical theory? Critical theory is proving unexpectedly relevant to media and technology studies. The editors of this volume argue that reading critical theory―understood in the broadest sense, including but not limited to the Frankfurt School―can help designers do what they want to do; can teach wisdom itself; can provoke; and can introduce new ways of seeing. They illustrate their argument by presenting classic texts by thinkers in critical theory from Althusser to Žižek alongside essays in which leaders in interaction design and HCI describe the influence of the text on their work. For example, one contributor considers the relevance Umberto Eco's “Openness, Information, Communication” to digital content; another reads Walter Benjamin's “The Author as Producer” in terms of interface designers; and another reflects on the implications of Judith Butler's Gender Trouble for interaction design. The editors offer a substantive introduction that traces the various strands of critical theory.
Taken together, the essays show how critical theory and interaction design can inform each other, and how interaction design, drawing on critical theory, might contribute to our deepest needs for connection, competency, self-esteem, and wellbeing.
Contributors
Jeffrey Bardzell, Shaowen Bardzell, Olav W. Bertelsen, Alan F. Blackwell, Mark Blythe, Kirsten Boehner, John Bowers, Gilbert Cockton, Carl DiSalvo, Paul Dourish, Melanie Feinberg, Beki Grinter, Hrönn Brynjarsdóttir Holmer, Jofish Kaye, Ann Light, John McCarthy, Søren Bro Pold, Phoebe Sengers, Erik Stolterman, Kaiton Williams., Peter Wright
Classic texts
Louis Althusser, Aristotle, Roland Barthes, Seyla Benhabib, Walter Benjamin, Judith Butler, Arthur Danto, Terry Eagleton, Umberto Eco, Michel Foucault, Wolfgang Iser, Alan Kaprow, Søren Kierkegaard, Bruno Latour, Herbert Marcuse, Edward Said, James C. Scott, Slavoj Žižek
Jeffrey Bardzell is Professor of Informatics in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University Bloomington.
Shaowen Bardzell is Professor of Human-Computer Interaction Design in the School of Informatics and Computing at Indiana University Bloomington.
. Mark Blythe is Professor of Interdisciplinary Design at Northumbria University.
Slavoj Žižek, a philosopher and cultural critic, is Senior Researcher in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Ljubljana, Global Distinguished Professor of German at New York University, and International Director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities at the University of London. He is the author of more than thirty books, including
Looking Awry: An Introduction to Jacques Lacan through Popular Culture,
The Puppet and the Dwarf: The Perverse Core of Christianity,
The Parallax View, T
he Monstrosity of Christ: Paradox or Dialectic (with John Milbank), and
Žižek's Jokes (Did you hear the one about Hegel and negation?), these five published by the MIT Press.
Umberto Eco was an Italian semiotician, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. He is the author of
The Name of the Rose, Foucault's Pendulum, and
The Prague Cemetery, all bestsellers in many languages, as well as a number of influential scholarly works.
