The seminar “Fashion and Cultural Studies I - Fashioning Identities, Styling Bodies” introduces students to fashion and cultural studies and focuses on fashion as a social and cultural phenomenon that revolves around the body and identities. Organized thematically, the course explores gender, sexuality, class, race, ethnicity, national identity, dis/ability, age/generation, and religion, and the intersectionalities among these subject positions in the transnational design, production, circulation and consumption of fashion.

The course offers an overview over the key concepts of fashion studies, and drawing on intersectionality theory in feminist theory, cultural studies and postcolonial/decolonial studies, it will foster an awareness for contextual flexibility and critical thinking about embodied identities and fashion.

Students will read and reflect theoretical writings from the fields of fashion studies, cultural studies, gender studies, sociology, and anthropology, will draw on contemporary everyday examples for discussion, and apply learned research methods in the development of research questions that critically reflect on fashion.

Current social, artistic and media practices on the subject of fashion are intended to enrich the discussion of the texts and encourage reflexive, contextual thinking and analytical research skills. Beyond critical class discussion and close readings of texts, students will work on a research paper exploring some of the "key concepts" on a more in-depth level, learning how to utilize and synthesize scholarly perspectives in the field of fashion studies.

To receive credits for this course, students have to fulfill the following requirements:

• Attendance of all four blocked units. There is an 80% attendance requirement for courses at the University of Applied Arts, this means that you can miss only 2,5 hours of one of the four course unit.
• Submission of the required class assignments (see  syllabus for detailed information). All assignments must be submitted by the provided deadlines.
• Active participation in the class discussions and group assignments
• Submission of the final assignment (book review, for details see syllabus)

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

• identify the key concepts and paradigm shifts in the field of fashion studies, key scholars who have influences fashion studies and the key topics that have structured them
• demonstrate knowledge and understanding of fashion studies related to discourses about the body, identity and the intersection among subject positions in fashion
• Identify and understand the breadth and width of cultural, social and historical factors that shape fashion as a practice and industry
• Understand and evaluate academic texts, utilize research resources and synthesise knowledge into a coherent argument