ARTH 379 - Postcolonial Theory in Art History: Orientalism in Design and Fashion

• M - 12:15-14:45
• EV-1.605
• INSTRUCTOR: DR. JOHN POTVIN
  

Since at least the eighteenth century the so-called ‘Orient’ has served as a source of fascination, mystery and mystification. It has also served as the location of colonial violence and imperial expansion. Between these two poles of experience, the Orient as a construction of the West has left and continues to leave a deep imprint on the history and development of design and fashion in the West. Theoretically informed by the important work on Orientalism and cultural identity by post-colonial scholars, this course will explore various acts of aesthetic and cultural translation performed by various types of designers. It will explore the way exoticism has been deployed as a means to express or even conjure liberation, otherness, difference, pleasure, illicit desire and alternative modes of self-fashioning counter to dominate Western social and cultural ideals. The course will chart out a general chronology of historical developments to the present day while focusing on case studies that point to important, larger thematic concerns.