Spring Cleaning:
Rediscovering and Revitalizing the Artifact
University of Calgary Free Exchange Graduate Conference
16-18 March 2007
Calgary, Alberta
For more information, please visit Free Exchange at www.english.ucalgary.ca

Dress as Artifact

As Roland Barthes argues in The Fashion System clothing is text, just as
language is a "written garment" (3). From Shakespeare's cross-dressing
male actors to contemporary culture's obsessive passion for fashion, this
panel proposes to discuss dress as artifact; how costume allows the
performance and pliability of confining structures, such as the body,
gender, identity, or simply literary texts. How does clothing perform the
aesthetic, social, and economic aspects of the culture it represents? How
does dress challenge definitive class and gender structures? How is
language itself a garment? Papers should consider the performance aspect
of clothing as social discourse, or how discourse itself means to dress to
impress. Whether it is the proper attire or the proper word, the
theatricality of clothing presents garb as a material artifact that
expresses the history of a culture. Papers can consider clothing as
artifact, or language as a form of clothing, or even written text on dress
as artifact. Submissions from any field of study are welcome.

Possible topics:

History of culture through clothing
Character of clothing/clothing as character
Clothing as text
Politics of clothing
Cross-dressing
Commercialization of dress (literal and figurative)
Language as the written garment

Deadline for submissions: 2 February 2007
Please submit 250 word proposals (for papers approx. 15 minutes in length)
to panel chair Veronique Dorais at vdorais_at_ucalgary.ca. Attachments should
be in Rich Text or Word format only, and please include your name,
professional affiliation, and contact information in the body of your
email.

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Received on Sat Jan 06 2007 - 18:56:12 EST