https://chrisdingwall.com Chris Dingwall Tue, 19 Apr 2022 21:19:11 +0000 https://chrisdingwall.com en http://chrisdingwall.com/Home-Page Tue, 19 Apr 2022 21:19:11 +0000 Chris Dingwall 423131 Chris Dingwall&nbsp;| Writing | Curating | Teaching&nbsp; I am a cultural historian of design in the United States. My work examines histories of race and capitalism in shaping everyday material culture, with particular focus on the experience of African Americans as practitioners and theorists of modern design. I work through my research as a writer and curator. Most recently, I am co-editor and lead author of Black Designers in Chicago, which is being published in July 2026.I work at Washington University in St. Louis as Assistant Professor of Design History in the Sam Fox School of Design &amp; Visual Arts and serve on the executive committee of the WashU Chapter of the American Association of University Professors. <img width="1690" height="1513" width_o="1690" height_o="1513" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/337091a423b57f095af0e66550d7435e40861daff936515f6e22441c5dbf81e2/Ghost-Illusion.jpg" data-mid="1184182" border="0" data-scale="75"/>From The Art of Projection and Complete Magic Lantern Manual (London, 1893), p. 169. Chris Dingwall&nbsp;| Writing | Curating | Teaching&nbsp; I am a cultural historian of design in the United States. My work examines histories of race and... http://chrisdingwall.com/Curating Tue, 19 Apr 2022 21:13:20 +0000 Chris Dingwall 423130 Chris Dingwall | Writing | Curating | Teaching <img width="1024" height="683" width_o="1024" height_o="683" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/53007f212a42c1ac14d536f10497327afd18cbd512ee7eb8e6d0178653fe085d/2025fl_Systems-of-Reproduction_002.jpg" data-mid="1433333" border="0" /><img width="1024" height="683" width_o="1024" height_o="683" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/53007f212a42c1ac14d536f10497327afd18cbd512ee7eb8e6d0178653fe085d/2025fl_Systems-of-Reproduction_003.jpg" data-mid="1433334" border="0" /><img width="1024" height="683" width_o="1024" height_o="683" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/b03f1aa2e54aff02d083e815a16551909b9685c0630e6312397357d03bf9b2b2/2025fl_Systems-of-Reproduction_005.jpg" data-mid="1433336" border="0" /><img width="1024" height="683" width_o="1024" height_o="683" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/296b2eb4473a6502614347f1678944a825b055842f074569fbe93163c864d790/2025fl_Systems-of-Reproduction_006.jpg" data-mid="1433339" border="0" />Installation view of Systems of Reproduction: Race and Design, a Teaching Gallery exhibition at the Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis (August 27–December 15, 2025). Photo by Joshua White / JWPictures.com Systems of Reproduction: Race and DesignKemper Art Museum September to December 2025 This teaching exhibit was curated to introduce students to the intertwined histories of race and design through the works of contemporary Black artists in the Kemper's collections. By showing how artists use design as material and metaphor for representing racial identities and ideologies, the exhibit meant to impart a lesson about the race as an object of design, and about design as an instrument of racial domination. <img width="1500" height="1125" width_o="1500" height_o="1125" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/bd82c822d88865cc09bc1cb14403ad713ea3fc814b9522152cfdbc75e69d42a2/IMG_3452.JPG" data-mid="1184205" border="0" /><img width="1500" height="2000" width_o="1500" height_o="2000" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/3c2501ef74b89602b9feb1e427c179761fd1384e5c18966732a7587372f5a7f0/IMG_3451.JPG" data-mid="1184207" border="0" /><img width="1500" height="1125" width_o="1500" height_o="1125" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/01899179fbfcf049ce4ea032884cfad5e9ec69197e75d699770fe5c45ce5f911/IMG_3401.JPG" data-mid="1184206" border="0" />African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce, and the Politics of Race, Chicago Cultural Center (October 2018-March 2019). From top: exhibition view; Herbert Temple designs of Ebony, Negro Digest, and Black World; Charles Harrison chair and slide projector. Exhibition design by David Hartt.African American Designers in Chicago: Art, Commerce, and the Politics of RaceChicago Cultural Center October 2018 to March 2019. The exhibition highlights the work of African American commercial artists who shaped the racial politics of mass consumerism during the twentieth century. As co-curator, I helped tell this story by selecting a range of design work from manufactured products such as chairs and dolls to printed ephemera such as album covers and magazine advertising. My long essay on the social history of African American design in Chicago was freely distributed as an illustrated newspaper-style handout in the gallery space. The exhibition was supported by the Terra Foundation of American Art.A symposium on The Designs of African American Life celebrated the opening of the exhibition on November 3, 2018 with a group of leading scholars in African American studies who spoke on the themes of design, political economy, and politics.The exhibition and symposium have been reviewed in public and scholarly forums:Architectural DigestBlack Perspectives Chicago ReaderChicago TribuneDesign IssuesThe GuardianSixty Inches from Center WGN-TVWTTW<img width="800" height="598" width_o="800" height_o="598" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/9506f681693e763f05c068b5b3dd6002eea986d1d326982245daca997ad4a5e2/IMG_0739.jpg" data-mid="1184204" border="0" />Race and the Design of American Life, Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago (October 2013-January 2014)Race and the Design of American Life: African Americans in Twentieth-Century Commercial ArtSpecial Collections Research Center University of Chicago October 2013 to January 2014 This exhibit, which was held at the Special Collections Research Center at the University of Chicago from October 2013 to January 2014, surveyed the ways in which African Americans shaped the visual iconography of consumer capitalism: as images and as makers and consumers of their own image. Chris Dingwall | Writing | Curating | Teaching Installation view of Systems of Reproduction: Race and Design, a Teaching Gallery exhibition at the Kemper Art... http://chrisdingwall.com/Writing Sat, 24 Jun 2017 02:48:03 +0000 Chris Dingwall 186914 Chris Dingwall | Writing | Curating | Teaching <img width="1517" height="1874" width_o="1517" height_o="1874" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/345b2e50162277656efdf4393b8454dfa1eede43a4238dba24b0d3d38c84a8de/gallab-BDC-cover.jpg" data-mid="1433206" border="0" data-scale="72"/>Cover design by Shiraz Abdullahi Gallab, featuring textile design by Robert Earl Paige. <img width="440" height="581" width_o="440" height_o="581" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/665418b70bb4394f5722252208b0de46b3b980f528acfda31cf78969e6dbdbfa/aaa.2021.60.issue-2.cover.jpg" data-mid="1184311" border="0" /> Jeff Donaldson with his work Wives of Shango, ca. 1970. Gelatin silver print. Photographer unknown. Jeff Donaldson Papers, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution. (Cover of Archives of American Art [Fall 2021]) Book Black Designers in Chicago: Culture and Community in the Twentieth Century, co-edited with David Hartt and Daniel Schulman (University of Chocago Press, 2026). Book Chapters / Journal Articles "Machine Age Watercolors," in Heather Campbell Coyle, ed., Jazz Age Illustration (Yale University Press / Delaware Art Museum, 2024), pp. 131-137."The Strange Career of Topsy," in Suzy Anger and Thomas Vranken, eds., Victorian Automata: Mechanism and Agency in the Nineteenth Century (Cambridge, 2024), pp. 272-288“The Political Economy of AfriCOBRA," Archives of American Art 60.2 (Fall 2021): 26-45“The Economies of Black Culture: Commercial Art in/as African American Art,” Questionnaire on Art and the Economy, American Art 33.3 (Fall 2019): 14-19 Essays“The Pioneering Career of Thomas Miller,” AIGA Eye on Design (August 2, 2021) “How to Renew the Color of Bricks,”&nbsp; Gagosian Quarterly (June 9, 2020)“The Chicago School of Theaster Gates,” C Magazine: Contemporary Art and Criticism 131 (Autumn 2016): 8-13. ReviewsSegal and Jahn, Design &amp; Solidarity: Conversations on Collective Futures (2023), in Design &amp; Culture (2024)Zorach, Art for People's Sake:&nbsp;Artists and Community in Black Chicago, 1965–1975 (2019), in caa.reviews (May 2022)Sheehan, Study in Black and White: Photography, Race, Humor (2018) for the American Historical Review (March 2021)Ellis, Antebellum Posthuman: Race and Materiality in the Mid-Nineteenth Century (2018), in H-Slavery (January 2020). Guerra, Slantwise Moves: Games, Literature, and Social Invention in Nineteenth-Century America (2018), in American Journal of Play (Spring 2019) Chris Dingwall | Writing | Curating | Teaching Cover design by Shiraz Abdullahi Gallab, featuring textile design by Robert Earl Paige. Jeff Donaldson with... http://chrisdingwall.com/Teaching Sat, 24 Jun 2017 02:47:37 +0000 Chris Dingwall 186913 Chris Dingwall | Writing | Curating | Teaching <img width="1690" height="1513" width_o="1690" height_o="1513" src_o="https://cortex.persona.co/t/original/i/68e99917371c23d0e6a2f7aa7699fc7bf308a87388d73cbbb650e73d5fe83d95/Ghost-Illusion.jpg" data-mid="1184227" border="0" /> From The Art of Projection and Complete Magic Lantern Manual (London, 1893), p. 169. At the Sam Fox School, I am teaching a undergraduate courses on design history and graduate seminar on the social history of digital technology. Along with colleagues at peer institutions, I am leading teaching workshops that introduces methods of archive-based pedagogy to design educators.Recent CoursesAfrican American Design History Graphic Design History Museum Tour Worksheet Graphic Analysis WorksheetUnCommon St. Louis: Race, Place, and Power Race and Design&nbsp; Chicago Designs Teaching Workshops Chicago Designs II: Teaching Community-Based Histories, hosted by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago / Design Museum of Chicago, June 14-18, 2024. Chicago Designs: New Approaches for Teaching Politics, Commerce, and Culture, hosted by The Newberry Library in Chicago, June 14-17, 2022. Recorded Talks“Black Revolutions: Organizing the Production of Black Design,"&nbsp;BIPOC Design History Course (January 23, 2021)On Charles Dawson for Art &amp; Design in Chicago, WTTW/PBS, television broadcast October 26, 2018 Courses Previously TaughtHistory of Graphic Design [Art History, Wayne State University]American Things (A Social History) [Honors College, Oakland University]Racial and Ethnic Relations [Sociology, Oakland University]Sociological Theory [Sociology, Oakland University]Mass Culture in American Life [History, University of Toronto]Slavery in the American South [History, University of Toronto]Race in American Material Culture [History, University of Toronto] Chris Dingwall | Writing | Curating | Teaching From The Art of Projection and Complete Magic Lantern Manual (London, 1893), p. 169. At the Sam Fox School, I am... http://chrisdingwall.com/Research Sat, 24 Jun 2017 02:47:27 +0000 Chris Dingwall 186912 Chris Dingwall | Writing | Curating | Research | Teaching | CV dingwall@oakland.edu Black Designers in Chicago Selling Slavery: Race and the Industry of American CultureThis is a book about how and why&nbsp; culture industries invested so much in racism at the turn of the twentieth century and thus transformed how Americans experienced the emergence of mass consumer capitalism. Focusing on the popular icons of the mythic old plantation, each chapter details the labor and planning it took to bring racist ideology to life in a variety of popular cultural commodities: theatrical spectacle, decorated books, photographic postcards, and mechanical toys. Yet selling slavery did not go uncontested. Essential to reproducing racist ideology on a mass scale, ironically, was the creative work of African American artists and performers, who sought to capitalize on the value of race in mass cultural marketplaces while bending the power of industrial capitalism toward the unfinished work of black emancipation. Their stories offer critical perspectives on the relationship between cultural industry and freedom—perspectives especially valuable in our age of digital media, global capitalism, and resurgent racism. Selling Slavery is currently under contract at Cambridge University Press for its series, Slaveries Since Emancipation. The Reconstruction of CultureMy new research project asks simply how the astonishing yet unfinished social revolution of slave emancipation transformed American culture during and following the Civil War. Although Reconstruction has been well-studied as a political, social, and legal history, I approach it as a significant cultural era when Americans sought to realize—and reverse—the nation’s “new birth of freedom.”Taking the metaphor of “reconstruction” literally, I am conceptualizing Reconstruction as an impulse to remake the world, an impulse that animated cultural practices in the South, the North, and the frontier West, and an impulse expressed in myriad cultural practices. My research is focusing on designed products (toys, furniture, home décor) as well as texts (novels, correspondence, memoirs) to grasp how Americans engaged the futures opened up by emancipation. Chris Dingwall | Writing | Curating | Research | Teaching | CV dingwall@oakland.edu Black Designers in Chicago Selling Slavery: Race and the Industry of...