(the) Cartesian (and the) Vernacular Part 2 Dissertation 2019 Joseph Earley Leeds Beckett University | UK This dissertation draws on the work of the late anthropologist Ivan Illich. Illich’s work is underpinned by the idea that the inhabitants of the modern world are locked in a battle of diminishing returns in which they strive for individuality and intimacy, but whose chief tools are the technologies of modernity that created the problem in the first place. Illich posits that specific values from a more convivial past hold the key to overcoming the problems of isolation, universalisation and the breakdown of public life that permeate modernity. Illich refers to these past values as Vernacular. Despite Illich’s belief that the Vernacular could be panacea to the darker aspects of modernity, the popular understanding of Vernacular has become confused and has lost its authentic power; the Vernacular is today misunderstood as quaint, backwards and frivolous. Illich’s authentic Vernacular is pernicious, highly resilient and has undertones of right-wing protectionism that are highly relevant to the modern global climate.The ambition of this dissertation is to examine the roots of the Vernacular (through architectural and urban case studies) and to establish a rejuvenated position for the Vernacular within contemporary discourse. Tutor(s) Doreen Bernath