Art & Industry Must Walk Hand in Hand: Muriel Spark and Twentieth Century Design Ideology
- Submitting institution
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Glasgow School of Art
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 7258
- Type
- C - Chapter in book
- DOI
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- Book title
- The Crooked Dividend: Essays on Muriel Spark
- Publisher
- Association of Scottish Literary Studies
- ISBN
- 0000000000
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- -
- Year of publication
- 2021
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
- -
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- Yes
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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0
- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This chapter is part of the collection The Crooked Dividend: Essays on Muriel Spark (Glasgow: Association for Scottish Literary Studies, 2021), edited by Gerard Carruthers (Glasgow) and Helen Stoddart (Glasgow) and comprised of papers from the Muriel Spark Centenary Symposium (2018). The book asks: What is the significance of Spark in literary and cultural critical studies in the early part of the 21st century? Building on the already prolific field of Spark studies, this collection is distinguished by its sociological concerns.
This chapter presents the first research to elucidate Spark’s references to mid-century design ideology, presenting a case for reconsidering the influence of Derek Stanford, Spark’s consort and collaborator during the 1950s. Stanford’s contribution to the cultural environment Spark inhabited at this critical juncture in her career has – largely at Spark’s behest – been ignored, despite the known parallels between her life and work: Spark (1991), Stannard (2010). Reassessing Stanford’s role brings forward Spark’s tacit links to Herbert Read and John Betjeman, both highly profiled commentators on mid-century design and architecture. It also suggests a place for considering the diaristic methods of Mass Observation as both practice and motif in Spark’s work. The interdisciplinary approach of this chapter means it contributes beyond ‘Spark Studies’ to a growing field which critically analyses the role of material culture within literature, and to the study of ‘Intermodernism’ (Bluemel 2009); it also demonstrates how such writings are a resource to understand the nuances of design in culture in the post-War period.
Research for this chapter was conducted in the Spark archives at the National Library of Scotland and Heriot-Watt University. Early versions were presented at the Centenary Conference and, by invitation, at the annual conference of the Modern Languages Association (Ohio State University, 2018).
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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