Suspended in 2025/26
SO475 Half Unit
Material Culture and Design
This information is for the 2025/26 session.
Course Convenor
Dr Don Slater
Availability
This course is available on the MSc in City Design and Social Science, MSc in Culture and Society, MSc in Economy and Society and MSc in Sociology. This course is freely available as an outside option to students on other programmes where regulations permit. It does not require permission. This course uses controlled access as part of the course selection process.
This course has a limited number of places (it is controlled access). Places are allocated based on a written statement, with priority given to students who have this course listed in their programme regulations.
Course content
This course focuses on designed entities in everyday life, looking at the ways in which materials are configured into things, practices, spaces and forms, and at the assemblage of objects across production, design, consumption and use. Though aiming to produce expertise in specifically social science research, the course will bring together literatures and debates that cross the social sciences, humanities and science/technology, drawing particularly on actor-network theory, material culture studies, sociology of consumption, practice theory, urban and architectural studies, cultural theory and design studies. There will also be a strong emphasis on methodology: what tools are available to social scientists to investigate the emergent properties and impacts of designed objects. Case studies will be central to the teaching, developing theoretical and methodological strategies through a (changing) set of empirical cases that are likely to include: digital objects (software, games); media objects; lights and lighting; fashion; domestic interiors.
Teaching
This course has a reading week in Week 6 of Autumn Term.
This course is delivered through a combination of lectures, online materials and seminars totalling a minimum of 20 hours in the AT.
Formative assessment
Essay (2500 words)
One 2,500 essay applying a theoretical approach to a specific case study, to be completed in the AT.
Indicative reading
Bijker, W. E. and J. Law (eds.) (1992) Shaping technology/building society: Studies in Sociotechnical change. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Frayling, C., E. King and H. Atkinson (2009) Design and popular entertainment. Manchester ; New York
Lash, S. and C. Lury (2007) Global Culture Industry: the mediation of things. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Manovich, L. (2002) The language of new media. Cambridge, Mass. London: MIT.
Miller, D. (2008) The Comfort of Things. Cambridge: Polity.
Molotch, H. (2003) Where Stuff Comes From: How Toasters, Toilets, Cars, Computers and Many Other Things Come to Be as They Are. New York and London: Routledge.
Shove, E., M. Hand, J. Ingram and M. Watson (eds.) (2007) The Design of Everyday Life. Oxford: Berg.
Yaneva, A. (2009) The Making of a Building: A Pragmatist Approach to Architecture. Bern: Peter Lang.
Assessment
Essay (100%, 5000 words) in January
Attendance at all classes and submission of all set coursework is required.
Key facts
Department: Sociology
Course Study Period: Autumn Term
Unit value: Half unit
FHEQ Level: Level 7
CEFR Level: Null
Total students 2024/25: Unavailable
Average class size 2024/25: Unavailable
Controlled access 2024/25: NoCourse selection videos
Some departments have produced short videos to introduce their courses. Please refer to the course selection videos index page for further information.