The Design & Screen Cultures (D&SC) Research Group is a collective of anthropologists, designers, geographers, historians and sociologists, with interdisciplinary interests, methods and work. We research across, with and at the intersections of architecture, animation, crafts, design, film, media and public services. Our specialist research interests range across ageing, ecology, gender, making, narrative, perception and sexuality, across Scottish and international contexts. Our approach to work is critical, ethnographic and qualitative and we are informed by and contribute to a broader arena of contemporary social research.
A key part of our research is our strong record of doctoral supervision. Collectively, we have supervised 22 doctoral students to completion and we currently have 30 doctoral students working with us, in both classical and practice-based modes. We deliver research-led teaching across the undergraduate and postgraduate programmes within the School of Design, and many of our courses run as electives open to students across the wider College of Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS). Engaging with a diverse body of students, we stimulate a focus on the cultural, critical, philosophical, political and social dimensions of design, crafts and media.
Highlights of our leadership and involvement in recent and current grant-funded research projects include: Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) grant Cruising the 1970s: Unearthing Pre-HIV/AIDS Queer Sexual Cultures; Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) joint grant Energy and Forced Displacement: A Qualitative Approach to Light, Heat and Power in Refugee Camps; European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grant for the Social Sciences and Humanities Knowing From the Inside: Anthropology, Art, Architecture and Design; AHRC Network, Creative Scotland and Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council Canada (SSHRC) grant for Naked Craft Network.
Highlights of our recent and forthcoming publications include: a collection of short essays in An Unfinished Compendium of Materials; a reader for Bloomsbury, The Animation Studies Reader; monographs for Bloomsbury, Deviant Design: The Ad Hoc, the Illicit, the Controversial and Norman McLaren: Between the Frames; an edited volume for Bloomsbury, Styling Shanghai; and an edited volume for Routledge, Surfaces: Transformations of Body, Materials and Earth.
