Global Circuits of Fashion and Beauty

Organized by Sharon Heijin Lee, Christina Moon, and Thuy Linh Tu.

Co-sponsored by the Asian/Pacific/American Institute at NYU, Parsons The New School for Design, NYU Department of Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU Program in Gender and Sexuality Studies,  NYU Asian/Pacific/American Studies Program, NYU American Studies Program, the MA in Fashion Studies (Parsons School of Art and Design History and Theory), and Interdisciplinary Urban Studies and Global Studies at The New School.

The global dimensions of beauty and fashion have recently taken highly publicized forms, seen, for instance, in Vogue editor Anna Wintour’s recent tour of China; the growing interest in Nairobi, Mumbai, and Dubai as luxury markets; and the viral distribution of Seoul’s elite Gangnam district as represented by PSY—to name just a few examples. These events have received much popular attention, in part because they present an ever-expanding world of happy shoppers but also in part because they highlight the immense (and immensely frightening) shift in the political and purchasing power of Asia and Africa. This symposium brings together a diverse group of interdisciplinary scholars to consider new geographies of fashion and beauty and ask how they have shaped alternative routes of exchange; generated forms of labor and modes of consumption; and have staged race, gender, sexuality, and class in a variety of regions.  Our discussion will stem from three key questions: How are the production, consumption, and transit of beauty and fashion connected to contemporary, post-American networks that, rather than routing through the global North, instead map other forms of exchange in Asia and Africa? How are these circuits shaped by histories of colonialism and empire and their lingering effects? How do fashion and beauty insiders, laborers, and consumers construct familiar and new forms of identity and community on and off the runway or surgery table, in and out of the retail outlet and factory, and through real-time and digital ventures?

SCHEDULE
2-4PM Panel I: How has thinking globally shaped knowledge about fashion and beauty?

Hazel Clark, Professor of Design Studies and Fashion Studies, The New School
Jessamyn Hatcher, Master Teacher, Global Liberal Studies Program, NYU
Kimberly Hoang, Assistant Professor, Sociology, Boston College
Christina Moon, Assistant Professor, Fashion Studies, Art and Design History and Theory, The New School
Minh-Ha Pham, Assistant Professor, Graduate Program in Media Studies, Pratt Institute
Thuy Linh Tu, Associate Professor, Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU

4-6PM Panel II: How has thinking about fashion and beauty shaped knowledge about the global?

Denise Cruz, Associate Professor, English, University of Toronto
Tanisha C. Ford, Assistant Professor, Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, UMASS, Amherst
Sharon Heijin Lee, Assistant Professor/Faculty Fellow, Social and Cultural Analysis, NYU
Ann Marie Leshkowich, Professor/Chair, Sociology & Anthropology, College of the Holy Cross
Laura Liu, Assistant Professor, Urban Studies, The New School
Seo Young Park, Assistant Professor, Anthropolgy, Scripps College
Priti Ramamurthy, Associate Professor, Jackson School of International Studies, University of Washington, Seattle

 
For more information, contact Jenn Soong (SOONGJ@NEWSCHOOL.EDU) or Christina Moon (MOONC@NEWSCHOOL.EDU).