GRST 284 - Do Looks Matter?: Fashioning the Self in Antiquity & Beyond

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

Topic for 2018/19b: Do you have to look smart to be smart? Socrates sets the stereotype for how the absent-minded thinker appears: ugly, barefoot, and depicted by Aristophanes as an airhead. But Plato admits to having designed and “beautified” him. From the fashion of intellectual dress to the fashion of intellectual address, deep thinking is more concerned with surfaces than it might look at first glance. There is a connection between what you wear and what you think. Style suggests something that is not visible, like a t-shirt with a catchy phrase on it (“I’m witty”) or a Chanel purse (“I’m rich”). And if how things appear is at all related to the way things are, then fashion—from clothing our bodies in textile to clothing our thoughts in text—deserves a double take. This course asks if there is a link between narcissism and self-reflection, the rhetorical and the real, and lies and truth. To do this means to look at the world and the self through the lens of poetic fashioning. We study ancient and modern thinkers to explore contemporary trends, such as goth fashion and its relationship to death; and we appeal to fashion designers and icons such as Alexander McQueen and Bill Cunningham to see how fashion can invoke timeless philosophical questions. Gwen Grewal.

Two 75-minute periods.