Course Offerings by term

This two-part course examines how and why Paris became the center of the contemporary fashion world. In part one, through reading, history and cultural theory and visiting certain key sites in Paris, students will develop an in-depth understanding of a city which is often considered to have been the template for modern urbanism – the ‘capital of the nineteenth century’, to use Walter Benjamin’s expression. In part two of the course, the emphasis shifts: the rise of the great couture houses becomes the focus. When did couture emerge, how it transformed in the twentieth century, what is the place of the couture today with the rise of ecological concern with it sustainable fashion? How did the couture house fit in the changing cultural environment in Paris, with wider aesthetic, social and moral concerns? In taking Paris Fashion Template, students will be cognizant with the city’s evolution from the seventeenth century onwards and have strong sense of the business and institutions which did so much in making the city a center what is now a global industry.

This course explores the power of visual forms of media and communication in forming and transforming our world and society. Through a transcultural survey of materials, contexts and theories, students will learn to study the visual as a place where meanings are created and contested, and understand how culture, ideology, and social norms and values can be conveyed through images. We will engage film, photography, museum exhibitions, advertisement, news reports, and consider the transformation of these media in a globalized digital environment. The rising power of digital vernacular images – images made by ordinary people in ordinary situations – is one of the subjects to be considered. We will address the impact of social media on the redefinition of community and identity, and on the transformation of politics and branding. Ultimately, students will deploy “tactics for studying the functions of a world addressed through pictures, images, and visualizations”. They will learn how visual theories extend across cultures, how visual practices shape the physical and cultural conditions of vision, and how visual media impacts our identity and environment in fundamental ways.