Fashion, History, and Mediation

Dr. Jonathan Michael Square
squaj264@newschool.edu
Office Hours: By appointment only

Parsons School of Design
School of Art and Design History and Theory
2 West 13th Street, Room 1201
Monday, 4:00am - 6:40am

Course Description

Fashion forms part of a society’s rich tapestry and can serve as an entry point into contemplating how marginalized and racialized communities understand themselves and their place in the world. "Fashion, History, and Mediation" will examine the role of fashion in challenging inequality through various forms of media and mediation. The course bridges key concepts in fashion studies with methodologies from sociology, anthropology, art history, and material culture. Students in this course will come away with a deeper understanding of the intersection of fashion, race, labor, and capitalism, and will critically address historical and contemporary social issues within the fashion system. The course seeks to help students understand how marginalized communities harness fashion to negotiate the complexities of power and visibility (and the lack thereof), proposing substantive solutions for a more just fashion system.

Learning Outcomes

By the successful completion of this course, students will be able to:

1. Deepen their understanding of foundational theories and systemic issues regarding fashion, race, and inequality

2. 
Develop fluency in critical thinking and writing skills that address fashion, race and power in a cogent manner

3. Develop familiarity with methodologies used in the study of visual and material culture 


4. Recognize and problematize existing business practices and design strategies challenging the fashion system today

grade breakdown

Class presentation (on the last day of class) 10%

Attendance & participation 10%

Thesis statement, outline, and annotated bibliography 10%

Fashion exhibition review 30%

10-page Final Paper 40%

Course Schedule

Week 1 – AUGUST 26: Introduction to the Course

Week 2 – September 9: Defining and redefining Fashion?

• Abby Lillethun, Linda Welters, and Joanne B. Eicher, “(Re)Defining Fashion,” Dress 38 (2012): 75-97.38 (2012): 75-97.

• Square, Jonathan. “How Enslaved People Helped Shape Fashion History,” Guernica.

Week 3 – September 16: Fashion in the Family Archive

Please bring a physical or digital family photo to today’s class.

• Alexis Romano, “1970s Fashion and Women: Finding the Everyday at the Intersection of Image, Archive and Oral History,” in American Fashion: Agency, Identity and Everyday Life, ed. Hazel Clark and Lauren Downing Peters (London and New York: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2024).

• Pham, Minh-Ha T., and Mimi Thi Nguyen, Of Another Fashion

• Rosales, Guadalupe, Veteranas And Rucas

• Waheed, Adreinne, Waheed Photo Archive

• Nuevayorkinos

• The Aids Memorial

• Rainbow Shoe Repair: An Unexpected Theater of Flyness

Week 4 – September 23: Love, Hate, and Culture Wars

• Jackson, Lauren Michele. “The Cover Girl: Blackness, Groundbreaking,” In White Negroes: When Cornrows Were in Vogue…and Other Thoughts on Cultural Appropriation, 31-46. Boston: Beacon Press, 2019.

• Scafidi, Susan. “The Commodification of Culture.” In Who Owns Culture?: Appropriation and Authenticity in American Law, 5-12. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press, 2005.

Week 5 – September 30: Blackfishing and the Persistence of Blackface

• Jackson, Lauren Michele. “We Need to Talk About Digital Blackface in Reaction GIFs.” Teen Vogue, August 2, 2017.

• Jackson, Lauren Michele. "The Women “Blackfishing” on Instagram Aren’t Exactly Trying to Be Black,” Slate, November 29, 2018.

• Lott, Eric, “Blackface and Blackness: The Minstrel Show in American Culture,” in Love & Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 15-38.

• Square, Jonathan M. “Is Instagram's Newest Sensation Just Another Example of Cultural Appropriation?.” Fashionista, Mar 27, 2018.

Week 6 – October 7: workshop Day

Thesis statement, outline, and annotated bibliography due in class

Week 7 – OCTOBER 14

No class

Week 8 – October 21: Fashioning a Gender Renaissance

• Lewis, Shantrelle P., introduction to Dandy Lion: The Black Dandy and Street Style

• Nazim, Hafeezah, “We Ask Some DapperQs Why Fashion Matters,” July 1, 2017.

• Paris Is Burning (1990)

• Suited (2016)

• Gender Bending Fashion

• Jonathan Square, “Her Name Was Mary Jones: The Life and Legacy of an Early Trans Pioneer” (forthcoming book chapter)

Week 8 – OCTOBER 28: Dress, Citizenship, and Belonging

• Jorae, Wendy Rouse. “The Limits of Dress: Chinese American Childhood, Fashion, and Race in the Exclusion Era.” In Western Historical Quarterly, Vol. 41, No. 4 (Winter 2010).

• Miller, Monica. “Crimes of Fashion: Dressing the Part from Slavery to Freedom,” In Slaves to Fashion: Black Dandyism and the Styling of Black Diasporic Identity. Durham: Duke University Press, 2009.

  ***

  Activity: In-class image analysis

  • “Photograph of the Shibuya Family in Mountain View, California,” 1942

  • Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center

  • Selected images of Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and W. E. B. Du Bois

    Fashion exhibtion review due

Week 9 – November 4: Beauty and Aesthetic Labor

• Summers, Brandi Thompson. “Race as Aesthetic: The Politics of Vision, Visibility, and Visuality in Vogue Italia’s ‘A Black Issue’” In QED: A Journal in GLBTQ Worldmaking. Vol. 4, No. 3 (Fall 2017), 81-108.

• Wissinger, Elizabeth. “Black-Black-Black: How Race Is Read,” in This Year's Model: Fashion, Media, and the Making of Glamour (New York: New York University Press, 2015), 216- 242.

Week 10 – NOVEMBER 18: plantation goods

• Seth Rockman, “Complaints and Compliance,” in Plantation Goods: A Material History of American Slavery (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2024), 319-346.

Week 11 – NOVEMBER 25: The End of the Trend: Fashion Consumption in the Age of Late Capitalism

• Brooke, Eliza. “How the Great Recession Influenced a Decade of Design,” Vox, Dec 27, 2018.

• Horyn, Cathy. “The Post-Trend Universe,” The New York Times, Feb. 15, 2015.

• Land, Stephanie. “The Class Politics of Decluttering, The New York Times, July 18, 2016.

• Mull, Amanda. “There’s No Such Thing as a Feminist Brand,” Racked, Jul 18, 2018.

• Thackara, Tess. “How Frida Kahlo Became a Global Brand,” Artsy, Dec 19, 2017.

• K-Hole, “Youth Mode: A Report on Freedom,” 2013.

• Rebecca Jennings, “Fashion is just TikTok now,” Vox, Feb 1, 2022.

Week 12 – DECEMBER 2: Sparking a Fashion Revolution

In-class 15-minute presentations of the research for final papers

Week 13 – DECEMBER 9: Sparking a Fashion Revolution II

In-class 15-minute presentations of the research for final papers

Final paper due