"10. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights."

― Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century

MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism presents the second edition of "A Critical Reader for Critical Times," an event and ongoing anthology project that collects the texts our community has found particularly resonant, comforting or empowering during these uncertain times around the globe. Selections might come from philosophy, literature, criticism, science fiction, or might be something you have written; it is wide open and doesn't have to be design-oriented. A sampling of selections to date include: Rip It Up and Start Again: Postpunk 1978-1984 by Simon Reynolds, Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln, Adventures in Modernism: Thinking with Marshall Berman by Ali Mirsepassi, "Self-Respect: Its Source, Its Power" by Joan Didion, The Book of Sir Thomas More, Act 2, Scene 4, by William Shakespeare, "The Newsroom" by Donald Barthelme, Hope in the Dark by Rebecca Solnit, "The Political Ontology of Threat" by Brian Massumi, and "Of the Open Sky" by John Ruskin.

A live reading of submissions will take place on Tuesday, March 13, 6:30 – 8:00pm. This event is intended to be casual and fun, and visitors can drop in as available. Refreshments will be served. RSVP here.

MA Design Research will also share excerpts of selections on its website (each text will have a couple of sentences of intro from the contributor), with an eye to publishing a print edition in the future.

Sign up to participate in the Critical Reader project by emailing your proposed text/excerpt or a link to designresearch@sva.edu by Friday, March 2. MA Design Research will contact all interested contributors with more project details.

Talk

A Critical Reader for Critical Times

MA Design Research, Writing and Criticism