cfp.english.upenn.edu

1st Global Conference
Fashion - Exploring Critical Issues

Friday 25th September - Sunday 27th September 2009
Mansfield College, Oxford

Call for Papers
Fashion is a statement, a stylised form of expression which displays and begins to define a person, a place, a class, a time, a religion, a culture, and even a nation. This inter-disciplinary and trans-disciplinary conference seeks to explore the historical, social, cultural, psychological and artistic phenomenon of fashion. Fashion lies at the very heart of persons, their sense of identity and the communities in which they live. Individuals emerge as icons of beauty and style; cities are identified as centres of fashion. The project will assess the history and meanings of fashion, evaluate its expressions in politics, music, film, media and consumer culture; determine its effect on gender, sexuality, class, race, age and identity; and explore future directions and trends.

Papers, presentations, workshops are invited on issues related to any of the following themes;

1. Understanding Fashion
~ Fashion, style and chic
~ Fashion and Fashionability; Fashion as Zeitgeist
~ History of Fashion

2. Philosophies of Fashion
~ Principles of Fashion
~ Fashion Theory
~ Fashion and Ideology
~ The Politics of Fashion
~ Ethical Issues in Fashion

3. Cultures of Fashion
~ Fashion Cultures
~ Fashion in the City
~ Fashion icons
~ Men and fashion
~ Children and fashion
~ Pets and fashion
~ Fashion and sports

4. Fashion and Identity
~ Fashion as defiance
~ Self-Fashioning and Body Art (body modifications, including make-up, hair design, piercings, tattoos, body sculpting, plastic surgery)
~ Gender, Sexuality and Fashion of the body
~ Class, Race, Age and Fashion
~ Fashion and Religion

5. Fashion and Representation
~ Fashion and Fashion and Pop Culture (eg., celebrity, fashion icons, reality TV programming (e.g, Project Runway and its imitators)
~ Fashion and Film,
~ Fashion and Music
~ Fashion and role-playing or fantasy

6. The Future of Fashion
~ Trends
~ Designing Fashion
~ The Business of Fashion
~ Fashion cycles
~ Shopping and Consumerism: Fashion Markets- fashion and beyond: designer furniture, designer architecture

Papers will be accepted which deal with related areas and themes. Pre-formed panel proposals are also encouraged.

The 2009 meeting of Fashion - Exploring Critical Issues will run alongside our project on Multiculturalism and we anticipate holding sessions in common between the two projects. We welcome any papers considering the problems or addressing issues of Fashion and Multiculturalism, Conflict and Belonging.

Papers will be considered on any related theme. 300 word abstracts should be submitted by Friday 17th April 2009. If an abstract is accepted for the conference, a full draft paper should be submitted by Friday 7th August 2009.

300 word abstracts should be submitted to the Organising Chairs; abstracts may be in Word, WordPerfect, or RTF formats, following this order:

a) author(s), b) affiliation, c) email address, d) title of abstract, e) body of abstract
E-mails should be entitled: Fashion Abstract Submission

Please use plain text (Times Roman 12) and abstain from using any special formatting, characters or emphasis (such as bold, italics or underline). We acknowledge receipt and answer to all paper proposals submitted. If you do not receive a reply from us in a week you should assume we did not receive your proposal; it might be lost in cyberspace! We suggest, then, to look for an alternative electronic route or resend.

Organising Chairs
Jacque Lynn Foltyn
Chair, Dept of Social Sciences, College of Letters and Sciences, National University, CA, USA
E-mail: jfoltyn@nu.edu

Rob Fisher
Network Founder and Network Leader, Inter-Disciplinary.Net, Freeland, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
E-mail: fashions@inter-disciplinary.net

The conference is part of the Critical Issues series of research projects. The aim of the conference is to bring together people from different areas and interests to share ideas and explore various discussions which are innovative and exciting. All papers accepted for and presented at this conference are eligible for publication in an ISBN eBook. Selected papers may be invited to go forward for development into a themed ISBN hard copy volume.

Please note: Inter-Disciplinary.Net is a not-for-profit network and we are not in a position to be able to assist with conference travel or subsistence. The conference is being organised with support from Models 1: Europe's Leading Model Agency.

For further details about the project please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ethos/fashion/

For further details about the conference please visit:
http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/ethos/fashion/call-for...