For 20 years, the Parsons/Cooper-Hewitt graduate program has produced an annual symposium on the decorative arts and design. This year's conference, Stuff: The Meaning of Materials, will be hosted at Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum April 14-15 with a keynote address by Christopher Wilk (Victoria and Albert Museum, London), "Thinking about Materials: A Case Study in Plywood." Other speakers will address topics as wide-ranging as "The Politics of Materials: Italy's 'Anti-Design' and Memphis" to "From Snow to Plywood: The Material's Role in Green Furniture." The symposium is free and open to the public. For more information and the full schedule, click here.

The Parsons/Cooper-Hewitt MA program shapes the next generation of decorative arts and design historians, curators, scholars and administrators utilizing its unique setting at the Cooper-Hewitt design museum and the resources of the museum's collection and library.