Nostalgic Design: Rhetoric, Memory, and Democratizing Technology

Nostalgic Design presents a rhetorical analysis of twenty-first century nostalgia and a method for designers to create more inclusive technologies. Nostalgia is a form of resistant commemoration that can tell designers what users value about past designs, why they might feel excluded from the present, and what they wish to recover in the future. By examining the nostalgic hacks of several contemporary technical cultures, from female software programmers who knit on the job to anti-vaccination parents, Kurlinkus argues that innovation without tradition will always lead to technical alienation, whereas carefully examining and layering conflicting nostalgic traditions can lead to technological revolution.

Author: William C. Kurlinkus
Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
Published: 12/18/2018
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.85lbs
Size: 8.90h x 6.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780822965527

About the Author
William Kurlinkus is an assistant professor of English and the director of technical writing and communication at the University of Oklahoma.