Course Catalog

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Course Catalog

GLOBAL DIGITAL CULTURES (CM5004)

This course provides an introduction to key topics and theories in the study of the Internet and other digital media as cultural and social phenomena. Four main themes guide our approach: space and networks; bodies and identities; objects and practices; and economics and politics. Within the contexts of globalization, we will place particular emphasis on interrogating transformations made possible by the pervasion of digital media, but also restrictions and contestations that arise. Students will develop their individual interests in relevant topics with an independent research project.

IDENTITY FORMATION IN A TRANSNAT'L WORLD (CM5005)

This course examines the theories of self and identity formation in a globalized world where traditional techniques of identity formation coming from religions and schools and family are being supplemented or changed by techniques coming from other cultures and countries. Some of these ways of self-identification are influenced by consumerism, advertising and media. Some are influenced by traditional physical and moral training or globalized martial arts. Some are influenced by the implantation of psychological and therapeutic techniques from the West. Others are linked to the circulation of techniques of self-formation from yoga, tai chi, and kabala that have been taken out of their traditional contexts and globalized, mediatized and modernized. This course looks at people who seek to make and define themselves in various different local contexts. It will also examine the rise of religious fundamentalism, its appeal to youth, and how it uses media. The course also looks at the role of media, institutions and advertising consumer culture in this process.

FASHION THEORY (CM5011)

Fashion Theory: (Un)dressing the Self: Dress & Identity
Dress is representation and objectification of our identity. It enables and supports social roles and structures. It grants us individuality at the same time as confirming our group belongings. As the most visible form of consumption, the most pertinent type of non-verbal communication, dress fulfils a decisive role in the construction of social as well as individual identity, the reflexive production of self. This course examines dress and fashion as social and cultural phenomena. It will explore the ways in which different identity categories – social, individual, gender, class – are constructed through dress. Moreover, we will explore dress as a multi-sensory system in relation to the way we experience and construct our ‘selves’ and the world we live in – a fact often overlooked in our seemingly occularcentric culture. Focusing on the physical self, the physio-aesthetic effect of cloth/ing on our bodies will be considered, the symbiotic relationship between the moving body, dress, the skin, the senses, and the self.
Through the readings of some of the key (fashion) theorists (e.g. Anzieu, Barnard, Barnett, Barthes, Davis, Eicher, Entwistle, Eco, Evans, Featherstone, Finkelstein, Flugel, Foucault, Goffman, Kaiser, König, Lacan, Laver, Lindstrom, Lipovetsky, Pallasmaa, Phelan, Roach-Higgins, Simmel, Stone, Veblen, Vinken, Wilson) we will investigate motivations in dress, the communicative properties of clothes and how we perform ourselves by way of dressing every day, the Western hierarchy of the senses, and the construction of the self as a visual and tactile process and the role of dress within it.
In addition to textual and visual sources, this course will consider a series of films to explore dress as an embodied and situated practice, investigating the relevance of filmic representation for fashion-related research and analysis. In preparation of the written assessment, the course will include a workshop on visual analysis.

FASHION THEORY (CM5011)

Fashion Theory: (Un)dressing the Self: Dress & Identity
Dress is representation and objectification of our identity. It enables and supports social roles and structures. It grants us individuality at the same time as confirming our group belongings. As the most visible form of consumption, the most pertinent type of non-verbal communication, dress fulfils a decisive role in the construction of social as well as individual identity, the reflexive production of self. This course examines dress and fashion as social and cultural phenomena. It will explore the ways in which different identity categories – social, individual, gender, class – are constructed through dress. Moreover, we will explore dress as a multi-sensory system in relation to the way we experience and construct our ‘selves’ and the world we live in – a fact often overlooked in our seemingly occularcentric culture. Focusing on the physical self, the physio-aesthetic effect of cloth/ing on our bodies will be considered, the symbiotic relationship between the moving body, dress, the skin, the senses, and the self.
Through the readings of some of the key (fashion) theorists (e.g. Anzieu, Barnard, Barnett, Barthes, Davis, Eicher, Entwistle, Eco, Evans, Featherstone, Finkelstein, Flugel, Foucault, Goffman, Kaiser, König, Lacan, Laver, Lindstrom, Lipovetsky, Pallasmaa, Phelan, Roach-Higgins, Simmel, Stone, Veblen, Vinken, Wilson) we will investigate motivations in dress, the communicative properties of clothes and how we perform ourselves by way of dressing every day, the Western hierarchy of the senses, and the construction of the self as a visual and tactile process and the role of dress within it.
In addition to textual and visual sources, this course will consider a series of films to explore dress as an embodied and situated practice, investigating the relevance of filmic representation for fashion-related research and analysis. In preparation of the written assessment, the course will include a workshop on visual analysis.

THE BUSINESS OF FASHION (CM5013)

The course aims to equip students with a knowledge of the fashion cultures that contribute to continued evolution in fashion industry systems, including the characters, business models and other diverse influences that shape fashion.
Using the international fashion calendar as a framework for study, the course will consider the role of fashion as an innovator, in business modeling, planning, communication, market research & analysis and creative entrepreneurialism as well as in the area of product and trend. Students will be encouraged to question how fashion has influenced other parts of the creative industries sector. The course will examine market segmentation and trend scouting in fashion, including an understanding of the influence of local trends on global products, (and vice versa) and the fashion industry's need to quantify trends.
Paris has long been revered as the first fashion city, and retains its position as a vital “research centre” for retailers, brands and designers. Set within a maelstrom of contemporary fashion cultures that include universal blogs and market information overload, Paris offers students an excellent laboratory for a study of the fashion paradigm that will be utilized in this module.
The course offers students an opportunity to examine the synchronicity of multimedia and global cultures with fashion (current forms such as blogs, branding campaigns and viral marketing as well as historic – movies, magazines, art). You are encouraged to develop an understanding of key drivers to the fashion industry machine, from sourcing and manufacturing to design, forecasting and retail. Primary research will form an important part of this course and students will be strongly encouraged to visit shows, trade fairs and stores within a structured line of investigation related to project briefs.

DIGITAL ADVOCACY: WITHIN/ WITHOUT BORDERS (CM5016)

This course analyzes the rhetorical-cultural aspects of global advocacy, such as how to fashion persuasion that speaks to multiple national, ethnic, religious and political audiences about issues of transnational importance and which have the same or similar persuasive goals. Case studies will be used to move back and forth between theory and practice, where studying the practice will inform the theory, and vice-versa. The course will answer important questions for global advocates.

FASHION MEDIA PRODUCTION (CM5017)

This course aims for a critical practice of fashion communication. It relies on the principle of “learning by doing”: learning how to communicate fashion through writing, photography, film, digital and new media, exhibition curation, styling and performances. Training multi-skilled, innovative and critical fashion communicators of the twenty-first century but also professionals interested in questions of global fashion communication is the objective in response to the heterogenous and transitory professional field of fashion. Together, we will investigate the new conventions and challenges, processes and practices of twenty-first century media through lectures and workshops, presentations and projects, and the direct involvement with AUP ASM. The class will experientially explore different ways of communication fashion through writing (journalistic, academic, commercial, advertorial, informational), visual (photography, drawing, film, video, and television), material (styling and curating fashion- performative: fashion performance, dance), digital (digital media such as blogs and Instagram accounts, video, virtual reality, online fashion resources, virtual and 3D fashion shows).

At the end of the class, each student will have achieved a multimedia project on a specific topic of their choice made of a text, a film, a podcast, a photo... Each class will be part of the overall project.

DIGITAL TOOLS IN CONTEXT (CM5018)

This theory/practice hybrid course will enable students to build a foundation of practical digital skills while critically exploring how they are implemented. Students will develop competence with a selection of data tools and be prepared for greater digital literacy. In parallel, the use of these digital tools will be problematized in relation to recent cultural, economic and political transformations.

MAGC MODULE (CM5020)

Topics for these intensive, practical modules change every semester. May be taken twice for credit.

PARIS FASHION HISTORIES & GEOGRAPHIES (CM5021)

The notion of Paris as “the global fashion capital “is so popular that it became a self-perpetuating myth alongside its mythical figure of La Parisienne. According to this idea, Paris is the birthplace and the capital of fashion and is still today the capital of haute couture, of elegance, of chic and of luxury. In part one of the course, through readings, case studies and visits of certain key sites in Paris (or online visits), students will understand how the fashion industry has shaped –and continues to shape –the city of Paris, from textile factories during the 17th century within Paris, to the emergence of luxury good shops (18th century), of department stores (19th century), of couture houses (19th-20th centuries), of ready-to-wear and fast fashion shops and of luxury flagships during the 21st century). While giving students tools to understand the development of Paris as a “fashion capital” this course also aims to unpack the discursive construction of Paris as the center of the fashion world. Going beyond this general idea of “Paris, capital of fashion”, this course will have a critical approach of the sociological and construction of Paris as the center of the fashion world and question how the story has been told, what was included and what left out. It will address the different levels of the industry, the high and low, the everyday and haute couture, the grand couturier and the migrant garment workers, the Chanel workshop on Avenue Montaigne and the fast fashion workshops in Aubervilliers, the luxury department stores and the flea markets. Discussions in class will thus question the hierarchy in the Paris fashion industry and show that behind the catchy idea of “Parisian fashion”, a more complex eco-system is at stake, involving discussions about class, race and gender in the fashion industry. In taking this class, students come to understand that Paris is not the place of a unique kind of fashion, namely the place of high fashion for wealthy clients, as it is widely advertised in the media and forged in the collective imaginary, but that Paris is constituted by different kind of fashion spaces which correspond to different kind of systems of clothes production and consumption: haute couture and ready-to-wear in the center of Paris, fast fashion, retail and wholesale in the suburbs of Paris. This heterogeneous geography corresponds further to different type of labor force, consumers, and representations, allowing to de-hierarchized, de-centralized the geographies of Parisian fashion.