Displaying Clothes: Fashion in the Museum
CSPL 289
Spring 2025
| Section:
01
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| Crosslisting:
IDEA 289, FGSS 284, SOC 279 |
Pictured prevalently and worn close to the body, fashion is a powerful and personal means of expression and documenting public life. With a focus on the United States, this course presents a loose chronology of fashion, from the late nineteenth century to today, through a selection of themes that will allow students to consider it in terms of its social, political, economic and aesthetic impact. Through the interplay of image, clothing, and text, each week we will explore the fashion industry from various perspectives, examining the key role makers and consumers play in constructing fashion both historically and today. Guest speakers and museum visits will enhance these perspectives. Specifically, we will question the ways we deploy dress and style to document public life, from the personal to the political, and how it informs our material and visual relationships with the world. In addition to lectures and readings discussion, class time will be allotted to students' fashion documentation projects. Fashion theory will also be introduced to ground our explorations of fashion, variously as a pictured and cultural entity, embodied practice, site of technological innovation, and tool for shaping one's identity. |
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| Credit: 1 |
Gen Ed Area Dept:
SBS CSPL |
| Course Format: Seminar | Grading Mode: Graded |
| Level: UGRD |
Prerequisites: None |
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Fulfills a Requirement for: None |
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Past Enrollment Probability: Not Available |
| SECTION 01 |
Major Readings: Wesleyan RJ Julia Bookstore
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Vänskä, Annamari and Hazel Clark, eds. Fashion Curating: Critical Practice in the Museum and Beyond. London: Bloomsbury Visual Arts, 2017. ¿
Simmons, John E. Museums: A History. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Unlimited Model, 2016. ¿
Petrov, Julia. Fashion, History, Museums: Inventing the Display of Dress, London: Bloomsbury, 2019.
McKenna-Cress, Polly. Creating Exhibitions: Collaboration in the Planning, Development, and Design of Innovative Experiences. Newark: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2013.
Macdonald, Sharon, ed. A Companion to Museum Studies. Chicester: John Wiley & Sons, Incorporated, 2010.
Steele, Valerie. 'Museum Quality: The Rise of the Fashion Exhibition.' Fashion ¿Theory 12/1 (March 1, 2008): 7¿30.
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Examinations and Assignments:
: Readings, exhibition reviews, and exhibition research, development and writing |
Additional Requirements and/or Comments:
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| Instructor(s): Romano,Alexis Times: ...W... 01:20PM-04:10PM; Location: TBA |
| Total Enrollment Limit: 15 | | SR major: 0 | JR major: 0 | | |
| Seats Available: 15 | GRAD: X | SR non-major: 5 | JR non-major: 6 | SO: 4 | FR: X |
| Drop/Add Enrollment Requests | | | | | |
| Total Submitted Requests: 0 | 1st Ranked: 0 | 2nd Ranked: 0 | 3rd Ranked: 0 | 4th Ranked: 0 | Unranked: 0 |
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