Professor Ann Marie Leshkowich
Beaven 231
508-793-2788
aleshkow@holycross.edu
OOffice Hours: M 1-4, W 1-2:45, F 1-2

 

Assignment Objectives

Learning how to analyze and conduct anthropological research about fashion and consumption requires practicing two different, but closely related skills: 1) defining and analyzing theoretical models to understand the links between fashion, consumption, the economy, political systems, individual identities, social relationships, and cultural values and 2) constructing a project and methodology that will provide information to address these concerns. Short written assignments will give you the opportunity to develop and practice both of these skills.

While the assignments vary from analytical to ethnographic exercises to keeping a consumption or spending diary, each asks you to relate your ideas or findings to the course readings. For each assignment, make sure that you formulate a thesis statement, present it in the introductory paragraph, and use it to guide your arguments in the body of your paper. Use these assignments to hone your skills in formulating and supporting anthropological arguments; you'll need these skills for the mid-term and final as well.

 

Arguments and Thesis Statements

Response papers are relatively short, but they each require you to reflect critically on the course's material, themes, and modes of inquiry. Each paper MUST have an introductory paragraph with a clearly articulated thesis that states the argument which the rest of the paper will advance. A thesis statement is not a declaration of fact, a broad claim, or an obvious assertion. A thesis statement is an interesting and specific contention about which one can reasonably debate and disagree. A thesis statement also serves to orient the reader by highlighting the major themes which will be discussed in the rest of the paper. Each of the assignments below pose questions which are intended to guide you in formulating a provocative and insightful thesis.

Examples of thesis statements:

BAD: Many Americans today pay attention to fashion. (This statement is both obvious and general; nobody would be likely to disagree.)

BETTER: Fashion has become an important means through which Americans express individual identity. (This statement relates fashion to individual expression, but it doesn't specify fashion's role and hence can't easily be contested. The reader has no clue as to how or why fashion is so important for individual identity, nor is there any suggestion as to why this is an interesting or important way to look at the issue.)

GOOD: In contemporary America, fashion has become the primary way in which we display ourselves to others. While some see fashion as an act of individual choice and self-expression, this view neglects an important fact: more and more of the clothing we use to express our supposed individuality is produced by huge retail chains such as The Gap, Old Navy, and Abercrombie and Fitch. If we are what we wear, then we have become nothing more than standardized, mass-produced commodities. (These sentences introduce a specific characterization of fashion as a means for self-expression and then present an argument as to why this view neglects the broader economic picture in which individual identity has been commodified. This is an interesting and arguable assertion as to the nature and/or significance of fashion.)

For an excellent, detailed discussion of how to formulate a thesis statement, take a look at this guide from Harvard University's Writing Center.

 

Response Paper Requirements and Grading

The specific assignments for each unit are listed below. Unless the assignment indicates otherwise, each paper should be 2-3 double-spaced pages. Assignments are due in hard copy form at the beginning of class; electronic submissions will not be accepted! There are nine assigned papers, of which you must complete six. Three of the papers must be completed before the mid-term, and three afterwards. Each of the six assignments will be worth three points, for a total of 18% of your course grade. One extra paper can be completed, in which case the highest six grades will count as your total. For more info on grading standards, click here. Late papers will not be accepted.

NOTE: Several of these papers require you to complete a specific ethnographic field exercise. These papers require advance preparation, so be sure to select your sites or arrange for interviews well in advance of class.

 

Assignment 1: Abercrombie and Fitch: Controversial Fashion or Fashionable Controversy? (due January 30)

Sex. Drinking 101. Ethnic humor. "The Look." These are all means through which Abercrombie and Fitch seeks to market itself to young American consumers. Is this part of the fun fantasy of fashion? Or has A&F gone too far and promoted bad behaviors and destructive stereotypes? This paper asks you to evaluate the controversy surrounding A&F's brand marketing by considering the links between fashion images and cultural politics. What are the real world consequences of A&F's representations? What role does the A&F consumer play?

 

Assignment 2: The Conspicuous Consumption of Couples (due February 6)

Veblen argues that fashion is a tool in the battle for social status, with women in particular being attracted to fashion because their primary role is to display their husband's status through their own leisure, as opposed to men who must work and wear more utilitarian clothing. This assignment asks you to evaluate Veblen's argument by considering the dress habits of a couple with which you are familiar. The couple can be married or long-term domestic partners, but they should be people whom you have seen or currently see with enough frequency to get a sense of how each partner typically dresses. (You may, for example, pick your parents and either recall how they typically dress or call them over the course of a few days and ask them what they are wearing each day.) How do the partners differ in their habitual dress, and what role do gender and occupation play in these differences? Keeping in mind that Veblen wrote The Theory of the Leisure Class more than 100 years ago, what do you think of his explanation for why women tend to be more closely associated with fashion?

 

Assignment 3: Subculture as Resistance (due February 15)

In Subculture, Dick Hebdige argues that marginalized groups develop and use subcultural style to symbolize resistance to the ways they have been characterized by the dominant society. This assignment asks you to evaluate Hebdige's characterization of subcultures by analyzing a youth subculture with which you are familiar, either through direct participation or observation. Based on your example, address the following questions: How, exactly, does the subculture you have chosen resist the parent culture? With what success? In what ways does it conform to or reproduce the dominant culture? In light of your example, what do you think are the strengths and weaknesses of Hebdige's argument?

 

Assignment 4: The Cultural and Political Economy of Salaula (due February 24)

The movie "T-Shirt Travels" and Karen Hansen's book present contrasting opinions about the effects of the secondhand clothing trade on Zambia. This assignment asks you to evaluate their arguments by considering the following question: Is the expansion of the salaula trade a sign of Zambia's neo-colonial dependence or an opportunity for Zambians to use clothing for upward mobility and self-expression? (Hint: Your answer is likely to be more complicated than the either/or choice posed above. It is therefore important that you specify exactly what you see as the good and bad effects of the salaula trade -- culturally, politically, economically, and socially -- and how we might therefore make sense of it overall. You might find it helpful to draw on Bourdieu's arguments about the links between class, taste, and cultural, social, and economic capital.)

 

Assignment 5: The Social and Cultural Politics of Ethnic Chic (due March 15)

In Clothing Matters, Emma Tarlo describes how the everyday problem of what to wear in India is in fact a deeply complicated decision involving issues of class, gender, caste, ethnicity, and nationalism. One of the most interesting examples of this dilemma is when people deliberately dress in a type of clothing not originally associated with the group to which they belong, as with the case of the wealthy urban Indian women mentioned by Tarlo who dress like low-caste rural women. Examples in the US today would include white suburban kids wearing hip-hop clothes or white yuppies who decorate their homes according to a Japanese Zen aesthetic. Tarlo claims that such moves are full of paradoxes (see chapter 9).

This assignment asks you to explore these paradoxes by interviewing someone who regularly partakes of ethnic chic, either in attire or in home decoration. Find out the history of your interviewee's relationship to the style s/he has adopted. Why does s/he wear clothes or decorate in that manner? What kind of identity is s/he trying to achieve? How much does s/he know about the origin of those styles? Does s/he wish to be associated with the group with which these looks are associated? Why or why not? Based on your interview, what kinds of personal, political, social, and cultural identities are involved in the use of ethnic chic? How does your example compare to Tarlo's discussion of ethnic chic in India?

 

Assignment 6: Orientalizing Gazes (due March 24)

Dorinne Kondo claims that Wim Wenders's film on Yohji Yamamoto "images the Orientalizing gaze of the West in masculine, high-modernist terms" (72). What, specifically, does she mean by this? Based on your own viewing of the film in class (March 17), do you agree with her critique that the film, ostensibly an homage to Yamamoto, depicts the designer as not quite achieving "Master Subject" status? Why or why not? With what significance?

 

Assignment 7: The Gender Politics of Fashion (due April 7)

In her discussion of feminism and fashion, Elizabeth Wilson asks, "Is fashionable dress part of the oppression of women, or is it a form of adult play?" Malcolm Gladwell documents how the Dockers campaign proves that you can get men to buy pants only if you sell them "nonfashion-guy fashion." Rooks shows how racial and gender politics intersected in African American women's changing hair practices over the course of the 20th century. Clearly, fashion has been closely connected to gender, race, and politics in the U.S.

This assignment asks you to consider your own decisions about what to wear in light of broader concerns about gender politics. If you are female, how does what you wear relate to your ideas about women's roles in society or what it means to be female? If you are male, how do you negotiate the conflicting messages that how one looks matters, yet men aren't supposed to be concerned with fashion? For both men and women, what does your personal experience with dress suggest about connections between fashion, gender, and race? (Hint: you may find it helpful to structure your essay as a critical response to an argument made by one of the authors we are reading in this unit.)

 

Assignment 8: Veiled Resistance (due April 21)

Based on the el Guindi book, write an essay in response to the following questions: Can veiling be a form of resistance? If so, what is being resisted? Is the resistance successful? Why or why not? (Hint: In responding to these questions, be sure to distinguish your own argument from el Guindi's. Explain whether you find her opinion compelling. Why or why not?)

 

Assignment 9: The Globalization of Fashion (due April 28)

Are economic and cultural globalization producing homogeneity or heterogeneity? With specific reference to fashion, is the increasing accessibility of products, people, and ideas from around the world making us dress more and more like each other, or in increasingly distinctive ways? What power relations are being created through these cross-cultural, transnational exchanges?

To address these questions, choose one of the two options below;
1) Transnational Production. Take a look at the "Made in..." label of every item of clothing currently in your possession. Keep a tally of the different countries in which your clothes have been produced. Which country has produced the greatest number of items? Find out what conditions are like for garment workers in that country by conducting a brief on-line search. (For example, Google "garment workers in X" with the phrase in quotes.) Based on this exercise, what do you see as the relationship between your consumption of clothing and its production? How do your findings compare to the issues explored in lecture?
2) Transnational Consumption. Find a newspaper or magazine article which talks about consumption of foreign clothing. You might, for example, look at jeans in India or African-inspired fashion in the US. What global relations of production and consumption are involved in these uses of foreign clothing? When people wear foreign styles, do they lose some of their own identity? Is consumption leading to the formation of a single global culture? Why or why not?

 

Dress or Spending Diary and 3-5 page analysis (Due: By 5pm on Tuesday, May 2, Prof. Leshkowich's office)

One of the goals of this course is to provide you with the analytical tools and cross-cultural perspective to evaluate the meaning and significance of your own dress and consumption practices. To that end, you will be asked to keep a dress or spending diary during the semester.

The diary assignment consists of the following:
1. First, decide which kind of diary you will keep. Choose one of the following options:
a. A list of your spending; or
b. A list of the clothing you wear each day (including where it was made and where you purchased it).
2. Keep the diary for two weeks during the semester. For those two weeks, you need to record everything you spend or everything you wear. You can pick whichever two weeks you want, either two consecutive weeks, or one week at one point and a second later on.
3. Write a 3-5 page essay in response to the following question:
How would one of the theorists we've discussed in class analyze your dress or spending diary for what it reveals about contemporary American fashion and consumption practices? What in your opinion would be the strengths, weaknesses, and significance of the theorist's analysis?

The point of this question is to get you to consider your own dress or spending practices in depth through the perspective of one of the authors we have learned about this semester. The author you pick is up to you. You might, for example, consider one of the following issues:
Are your spending or dressing habits marked by what Juliet Schor terms the "Diderot efffect"? Do you agree with her proposed solutions?
How do your spending or dress practices relate to class status, such as the ides of cultural capital discussed by Bourdieu or conspicuous consumption covered by Veblen?
How might your dress or spending practices be read by others in light of semiotic approaches, such as those by Barthes or Hebdige?
What are the sources of your desire for fashion or consumer items? Is your desire created semiotically as Barthes described?
How has globalization affected/shaped your dress or consumption practices? What do your practices suggest about the homogenization vs. heterogenization debate? Is Jones and Leshkowich's call for attention to performance practices a useful way to understand the effects of your dress or consumption practices?
Is your exercise of agency in fashion or consumption constrained by socioeconomic factors, such as Fiske considered in his analysis of malls or Hansen discussed with salaula in Zambia?

These are just some ideas to get you thinking; the framework for your analysis is ultimately up to you. You should be sure to deal critically and substantively with at least one author's ideas (more authors are OK, but not required). As always, be sure to frame your analysis with a clearly conceived argument and thesis statement.

 

For more information, contact:  aleshkow@holycross.edu