Nostalgic Design: Rhetoric, Memory, and Democratizing Technology

Abstract

This book is a necessary and welcome addition to the larger English studies literature, particularly in an era when English departments, and the humanities more generally, are under attack. . . . Nostalgic Design is an excellent work of scholarship that deserves high praise in the field. 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. Recognizing nostalgia as the creative glue that binds emerging design processes in areas ranging from crafting communities, anti-vaccination discourse, UX design, and more, Nostalgic Design validates and empowers non-experts in these processes, and provides for experts a means by which they come to value the design knowledge of those outside of their professions. As a roadmap to successful future collaborations, this book has much potential in professional and academic settings alike.