Fashioning selves and social worlds: The meaning, production, and consumption of clothing in contemporary societies

3 credits · Undergraduate

Clothing and fashion are profoundly social and cultural. We use clothes deliberately to both set ourselves apart and to express our belonging to particular social or cultural groups. People also form ideas about who we are— our economic status, our gender, our ethnicity— that may or may not align with how we see ourselves. Even if we give little thought to what we wear, the options available when we get dressed each day are the product of a global fashion industry, one that is deeply implicated in the current environmental crisis and unethical economic inequality. This course discusses these, and other topics, drawing on key ideas in sociology and anthropology to explore the manifold ways in which fashion and clothing shape selves, societies, and cultures. PREREQUISITES: One SOSA course at the 1000 level or FYP FORMATS: Lecture