ARTH 298Q/4-A - Topics in Genre Studies: Studies in Fashion

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EV-1.615
INSTRUCTOR: DR. JOHN POTVIN

As an academic discipline fashion studies owes much to art history both in terms of its origins and intellectual development. However, traditionally fashion as a field of study has often been viewed with suspicion, cynicism, contempt and condescension. For the past decade fashion as a legitimate intellectual, cultural and social concern has resulted in an ever-expanding body of scholarship with increasing attention being paid to it by students and scholars alike. The field remains, nonetheless, wide open and rip with possibilities of exploration.

Fashion affects everyone on a daily basis, whether we are conscious of it or not, and as such it variously comprises a set of visual, material, corporeal and spatial practices. This course will explore various aspects of the history of fashion and moments of interaction with other visual and material practices. Through lectures, readings and discussions, together we will explore fashion from the 19th century to the present as it intersects with painting, architecture, retail and consumption, performance, photography, fashion in the art museum, illustration and virtuality in addition to exploring fashion studies' fraught beginnings and development.