Welcome to Fashion, Nation, and Culture!
Ital 260 / Art H 260 / JSIS A 260
Professor Gaylard
Course objectives:
- Gain an overview of Italian (and Western European) culture by focusing on fashion and manners from the late medieval period to today.
- Explore common assumptions about nation, gender, clothes, and make-up, through literary and visual analysis,
- in order to seek answers to two primary questions: “What is fashion?” and “What makes Italian fashion Italian?”
- Use resources from the library’s Special Collections.
- Engage in a discussion that relates contemporary American concerns to issues raised in European culture since the middle ages.
- Improve skills of critical analysis in both reading and writing:
- Pick out the main point(s) of a piece of academic writing.
- Contextualize an academic article using your new knowledge (from this course), and respond to it.
- Build on your new knowledge to develop an argument that supports your opinions.
Course overview
This course provides a broad introduction to Italian culture by examining the category “fashion” —beginning with late medieval livery, and the Renaissance emphasis on adapting one’s clothes, speech and personal style to the occasion. The early modern emphasis on manners, and the plethora of “how-to” manuals, corresponded with a growing identification of “dressing up” with effeminacy. We will examine the problem of gender and consumption, so as to contextualize the English adoption of the three-piece suit as modest masculine attire. We will also consider the role of clothing in constructing Italian, French, and American national identity. In this light, students will study both the post-war Italian idealization of American culture, and American idealization of Italian fashion.
In analyzing literature, images, films, and material objects, we will focus on a series of questions: How can clothes constitute identity? And can clothes constitute national identity? What is the role of gender in the production and consumption of “beauty”? Which early modern elements of style and behavior remain current today, and why? What is “Italian” about Italian style?
Course expectations and grading scale
In order to help you succeed in this course, I (the professor) undertake to:
- begin and end class on time
- be available for shorter questions right after class and for longer questions at office hours (and by phone during office hours)
- ensure that grading is fair and timely
- respond to brief email queries within a reasonable time frame (Mon-Fri)
Your success depends on your commitment to:
- attend class
- complete readings well before class, thinking about the question of the week
- turn in assignments on time
- respect your classmates:
- learn from your classmates’ comments and questions
- avoid chatting, eating, using your phone, and social media
- if you have to arrive late or leave early, minimize disruption by sitting at the end of a row near the door
- if you have a cold/cough/allergies, please wear a mask
- use available help for writing your papers:
- visit CLUE: http://academicsupport.uw.edu/clue/
- use the resources at:
https://depts.washington.edu/owrc/undergraduate-students/handouts/ especially “How to Organize & Structure Your Paper” and "How to Perform a Close Reading" (especially final section of this)
- make an appointment at the Odegaard Writing Center
- use available support for charting your own path: Academic Success Coaching
If you have questions or concerns, don’t wait! Bring them to the professor asap.
Grades:
Tiny in-class written assignments 15%
One short in-class written assignment 10%
One short paper (4-6 pages): 10%
Midterm exam 30%
Final exam 35%
Multiple tiny in-class written assignments (graded check plus, check, check minus, or zero) are a way for you to identify where your concerns are, or questions you want to explore. They also show me where you may need more help to understand the readings. Assignments may be one-minute freewrites, short quizzes, quick responses to a question, or some other format. Assignments will be given randomly; only completed work turned in during class will receive credit. You are most likely to receive full credit for these assignments if you prepare all readings carefully before class, and pay attention during class.
Short in-class writing assignment (graded on a percentage scale) is designed to help you formulate and refine your ideas as you try to understand and apply the new material. To succeed, you must print out the materials we’re using: research increasingly shows that reading from paper produces better comprehension and analysis. The writing practice will also help develop your writing skills for the short paper (graded on a percentage scale). Papers that are too short or too long may be penalized.
To prepare for the exams, it is essential to attend lectures and discussion sections. While the exams require you to remember some facts, the focus is your ability to use what you have learned in order to contextualize and critically analyze images and texts.
Academic standards matter because without them, your degree has no value.
In order for you to benefit from this course, your work must be the product of your own analysis and thought processes. Your independent analyses are important in your future career: when your boss asks the team to generate ideas, they expect a range of original proposals—not viewpoints that are all derived from the same algorithm. This is especially important in Italian fashion studies, where there is very limited accurate information for AI to scoop up and repackage.
Plagiarism and use of AI tools (like Chat GPT) to generate prose will earn an F grade and be reported to the Office of Academic Standards.
How to avoid plagiarism:
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/avoiding_plagiarism/documents/plagiarism_one_pager.pdf
How to avoid Chat GPT: Trust yourself: you are here because you have the potential to think and analyze. Trust the process of reading, thinking, writing, re-thinking, re-writing. Read carefully (ideally from paper), making handwritten notes of what YOU THINK the main point of each article is. For very dense articles, write down the main point of each section or each page. Come to class ready to discuss what the main point is.
Required texts:
*Molière, The Bourgeois Gentleman, trans. Bernard Sahlins (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2000)
*Readings, images, paper topics, assignments, and other information will be posted under weekly modules on Canvas.
Religious accommodations: Washington state law requires that UW develop a policy for accommodation of student absences or significant hardship due to reasons of faith or conscience, or for organized religious activities. The UW’s policy, including more information about how to request an accommodation, is available at Religious Accommodations Policy (https://registrar.washington.edu/staffandfaculty/religious-accommodations-policy/). Accommodations must be requested within the first two weeks of this course using the Religious Accommodations Request form (https://registrar.washington.edu/students/religious-accommodations-request/).
Access and Accommodations
If you have a temporary or permanent health condition or disability that requires accommodations (e.g. mental health, attention-related, learning, vision, hearing), please contact DRS at 206-543-8924 or uwdrs@uw.edu or https://depts.washington.edu/uwdrs/ . DRS offers resources and coordinates reasonable accommodations for students with disabilities and/or temporary health conditions. If you already have DRS accommodations, please let us know as soon as possible.
Course Schedule will be available in March
Our timetable may change during the quarter; check email and Canvas for updates