THEA 298 - Fashioning Selves: Performing Identity in Dress

This course examines our complex relationship with clothing and appearance, wherein societies and individuals adorn themselves in “fashion” and “dress” to engage in the conceptual and physical rituals of intersecting identities.

Those identities may be absorbed or projected, prescribed or proclaimed. They may signal affinity or opposition, solidarity or protest. They may, in fact, signal all of these at once. In any case, the performative, visible manifestation of intersecting identities will be the overall subject of our inquiry.

The course will rely on multiple methodologies, including fashion studies, cultural studies, anthropology, and design. Readings in all of these areas will allow students to examine the fluid, consumable, phenomenon of fashion alongside the intimate, daily practice of dress. Research presentations, discussion, and making-based projects will be central to the course.

Credits 1

Notes
Cross-listed with WGS 298 .