Interviews and Profiles
Thinking through Graphic Design History: Challenging the Canon by Aggie Toppins
Bloomsbury Publishing, January 2025
Perform—Produce by Rebecca Wilkinson
June 2024
Ksenya Samarskaya, AIGA Eye on Design
April 14, 2021
Conferences, Colloquia, and Symposia
- Graphic Design and AI: Perspectives from the History of Automation
Annual Conference, College Art Association
New York NY, February 14, 2025
- Looking for Work: A Labor Perspective on Design and Technology
New Directions in Design History, Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts, WashU
St. Louis MO, January 31, 2025
- Automation and Alienation in Graphic Design History
Art History Colloquium, UIC School of Art & Art History
Chicago IL, March 15, 2024
Writing and Reading Histories of Graphic Design Pedagogy, Parsons School of Design
New York NY, November 4, 2022 (remote)
- What (and Who) Does Design Research Include?
NC State University Doctor of Design Symposium: Inclusion in Design Research
Raleigh NC, August 20, 2021 (remote)
- Phototypesetting and the “Life-Cycle” of Socialism
Annual Conference, College Art Association
New York NY, February 11, 2021 (remote)
- “Vernaculars of Capitalism”: Problems of Periodization in Graphic Design History
Annual Conference, College Art Association
Chicago IL, February 15, 2020
- The 1947 – 49 Chicago Printers’ Strike and the History of Typography
Chicago: City of Commerce and Design, 1890 – 1990, Newberry Library
Chicago IL, January 16, 2020
- Post-Fordism, Graphic Design, and “Premature Post-Capitalism”
The Legacy of Moishe Postone, University of Chicago
Chicago IL, February 16, 2019
- Stuart Hall’s Marx Essays: Method as Metaphor
Social Theory Workshop, University of Chicago
Chicago IL, January 25, 2018
- Real Abstraction and the Limits of Theory in Marxist Critiques of Structuralism
Historical Materialism Toronto: Confronting the Violence of Capital
Toronto, Canada, May 14, 2016
- The “Legibility Debates” in Graphic Design: Ambiguity and Intention
Annual Conference, National Communication Association
Las Vegas NV, November 20, 2015
- The Linotype: Agency and Mechanization in Turn-of-the-Century Typography
Annual Meeting, Society for the History of Technology
Albuquerque NM, October 9, 2015
Invited Talks
- Composition: Design and the Division of Labor w/ Rebecca Wilkinson
New Arguments Series, St. Edward’s University
Austin TX, November 3, 2024
- Book Release: Autonomia e Automação: Dois Ensaios sobre Design
Universidade Lusófona
Lisbon, Portugal, September 26, 2024
- Labor History in the Studio (lightning lecture)
Chicago Design Archive’s 20th Anniversary Celebration: Past, Present, Future
Chicago IL, November 9, 2023
- Gendered Labor and the Technical Transformation of Publishing
Triple Canopy’s Summer Publishing Intensive, Interference Archive
Brooklyn NY, June 21, 2023
- Typography and Automation from the Linotype to “AI”
Typographics Conference, Cooper Union
New York NY, June 16, 2023
- Chicago Printers’ Unions and the Mechanization of the Printed Word
Red Line Service Art Histories Series, Comfort Station
Chicago IL, November 13, 2022
- Typographical Labor in Graphic Design History
Guest Lectures in Design Cultures, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam
Amsterdam, Netherlands, September 29, 2022
- A Labor Theory of Postmodernism
Graphic Design Confabulations Series, Estonian Academy of Arts
Tallinn, Estonia, April 13, 2022 (remote)
- For a Labor History of Typography
Letterform Lectures, Letterform Archive
San Francisco CA, March 1, 2022 (remote)
- WIZ * Jour Fixe #2 w/ Silvio Lorusso
Was ist Zeitgemäß? Series, Burg Giebichenstein University of Art and Design Halle
Halle, Germany, June 15, 2021 (remote)
- The Politics (and Joy) of Organizing around Print and Labor w/ Danielle Aubert
Inga Bookshop
Chicago IL, January 19, 2020
- Other Forms Book Launch: Danielle Aubert and J. Dakota Brown
Chicago Art Book Fair
Chicago IL, November 17, 2019
- Type Tectonics: Typography, Technology, and the Transformation of Work w/ Michael Neuschatz
UIC School of Design; co-sponsored with the Design Museum of Chicago
Chicago IL, April 17, 2017
Guest Lectures (by course)
- The History of Typography, prof. Jill Gage / An Environmental History of the Book, prof. Eric Slauter (shared session)
Rare Book School at the Newberry Library
Chicago IL, August 7, 2025
- Research Methods for Graphic Design, prof. Ali Qadeer
OCAD University
Toronto, Canada, October 28, 2024 (remote)
- Design and the Body, prof. Bess Williamson
School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago IL, March 20, 2023
- Graphic Design History, prof. Arden Stern
Art Center College of Design
Pasadena CA, March 29, 2023 (remote)
- Radical Reading, prof. Leah Feldman
University of Chicago
Chicago IL, April 27, 2022
- Digital Art and Aesthetics: Capitalism, Work, and Automation, prof. Gavin Mueller
University of Amsterdam
Amsterdam, Netherlands, April 24, 2020 (remote)
Workshops
- New Arguments in Design History
St. Edward’s University
Austin TX, June 9 –13, 2025
- Chicago Designs: New Approaches for Teaching Politics, Commerce, and Culture
Newberry Library
Chicago IL, June 14 –17, 2022
- Stone Art Theory Institute: Beyond the Aesthetic and the Anti-Aesthetic
Art Institute of Chicago
Chicago IL, July 15 –19, 2011