VISST 6658

Fabricating Race: Art, Clothing, Resistance

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2020-2021.

Often referred to as a "second skin", aesthetic representations of clothing open the possibility of reimagining the visual economy of race—the belief that race can be located in the body's visible features and characteristics. Bringing together the research methods of visual culture, material culture, and literary studies, and moving among photographic, painted, and literary portrayals by and of African Americans, we will explore fashion and clothing as aesthetic practices of everyday life that defy racism's flattening and objectifying effects. The course will pay particular attention to artwork that explores the multiple valences of "fabrication"—working with materials, making and fictionalizing—to reveal and reconfigure the psychic consequences of living under the gaze of white dominance. For longer description and instructor bio visit The Society for the Humanities website.

When Offered Spring.

Permission Note Not open to: undergraduates.

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