WRITING & CRITICISM in Fall 2024 (EN2020K)

This course explores the material and metaphorical dimensions of fashion across cultures and time periods. Pairing texts and cultural theories of fashion, we will explore ancient Buddhism’s ambivalence towards make-up as a sign of beauty and of cosmetic artificiality in Ashvaghosh’s Handsome Nanda. The high fashion of the Japanese Heian court will be the focus of our study of Genji, in which dress signifies both power and desire. Androgyny and cross-dressing will structure our analysis of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, which also plays with concepts of illusion and reality. Reading with and against Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey will teach us how the appearance of muslin revolutionised fashion in England (it was the nineteenth-century equivalent of the synthetics revolution in the twentieth century). It also marked a key moment in the history of global capitalism (muslin was supplied by Britain’s Indian colonies). By the time we arrive at Lisa Robertson’s Baudelaire Fractal and recent music videos, we will have come to look upon fashion not only as a system of arbitrary signs, but as a fold in the fabric of time itself, perceptible in vintage clothing. In the course of our investigations of cochineal eyeliner and kimono sleeves, breeches and cross-garters, we will style ourselves as textual dressmakers, choosing materials (sources), imagining a design (argument), working the fabric (writing), and adding the final flourish of accessories to the crown the effect (style).

Texts:

Ashvaghosh, Handsome Nanda

Murasaki Shikibu, The Tale of Genji

Shakespeare, Twelfth Night

Jane Austen, Northanger Abbey

Lisa Robertson, The Baudelaire Fractal

Selected poems and music videos