How fashion became interesting for the modern aesthetics - ASV00020
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How fashion became interesting for the modern aesthetics
The aim of this seminar will be to point out the substantial interconnection between fashion, modernity and aesthetics. We want to consider this connection as the culmination of trends present in the modern aesthetics of the 19th century. This shift also illustrates very clearly the change in philosophical thinking at the time, as fashion embodies transience and temporality. Its incorporation into aesthetic thought signals the association of beauty with impermanence and fragility, rather than its earlier anchoring in a metaphysical, extra-temporal reality. We will focus on key texts of late 19th and 20th century, where the fashion (in connection with clothing) entered into western aesthetic and philosophical theory. Emphasis will be on a concentrated seminar reading of selected parts of texts by Charles Baudelaire, Georg Simmel and Walter Benjamin. Passages from Baudelaire´s „Painter of Modern life“, Simmel´s „Philosophy of Fashion“ and Benjamin´s „Arcades Project“ will be analysed, discussed and set in their historical and theoretical background. All texts will be read in English. In the case of key passages, the original may be taken into account, but knowledge of German and French is not a prerequisite for the seminar. The seminar will take place once a week /90 minutes/. Participants are required to attend in person. They are also expected to actively participate in the discussions in the seminar sessions. To be able to successfully end the couse, the students have to submit a paper (600–1000 words). The topic of the paper should be based on the material discussed in the class and the topic has to be previously agreed upon with the teacher. ECTS credits: 6 Syllabus of lessons 1. Introduction: Western aesthetics in the early 19th Century. Aims of the course; subject, texts, authors 2. Concept of modern art in Charles Baudelaire´s critical writings; Painter of Modern Life 3. Temporality of specifically modern beauty; Baudelaire´s reinterpretation of modernity 4. Function of fashion for aesthetics in Baudelaire 5. Historical background. Change in fashion design in Paris of the Second empire; Charles F. Worth: from an artisan to an artist 6. Dandy and „flaneur“ as forms of modern aesthetic subjectivity. Georg Simmel´s philosophical reception of modern aesthetics 8. City, stranger and adevnture in Simmel‘s thinking 9. Dialectics of the equalization and individualization in Simmel´s „Philosophy of Fashion“ 10. Walter Benjamin: Simmel´s student and Baudelaire´s translator; Baudelaire´s Paris and The Arcades Project 11. Temporality in Benjamin´s „On the Concept of History“. Why it is fashion that is an organon of historical knowledge 12. Quotations in realms of texts and textiles; Revolutions in fashion: eternal yet fragmentary return of the new 13. Final remarks and discussion of the submitted seminar papers Bibliography Primary literature Baudelaire, Charles. 2010. The Painter of Modern Life. London: Penguin UK. Benjamin, Walter. 2003. „On the Concept of History “. In Eiland, Howard and Jennings, Michael W. (ed.) Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, Vol. 4, 1938-1940. Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London: Belknap Press. Benjamin, Walter. 1999. The Arcades Project. Cambridge (Massachusetts) and London: Belknap Press. Simmel, Georg. 1997. „The Philosophy of Fashion“. In Frisby, David and Featherstone, Mike. (ed.) Simmel on Culture. Selected Writings. London, Thousand Oaks, new Delhi: Sage, pp. 187–206. Simmel, Georg. 1997. „The Metropolis and Mental Life.“ In Frisby, David and Featherstone, Mike. (ed.) Simmel on Culture. Selected Writings. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: Sage, pp. 174–187. Simmel, Georg. 1997. „The Adventure“. In Frisby, David and Featherstone, Mike. (ed.) Simmel on Culture. Selected Writings. London, Thousand Oaks, new Delhi: Sage, pp. 221–233. Simmel Georg. 1950. „The Stranger“. In Wolff, Kurt. H. The Sociology of Georg Simmel. Glencoe, Illinois: The Free Press, pp. 402–409. Secondary literature Calinescu, Matei. 1987. Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism. Durham: Duke University Press Books. Carter, Michael. 2003. Fashion Classics. From Carlyle to Barthes. Oxford, New York: Berg. Hroch, Petra. 2010. “Fashion and Its ‘Revolutions in Walter Benjamin’s Arcades”. In Pusca, Anca M. (ed.) Walter Benjamin and the Aesthetics of Change. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 108 -127. Kim, Sung Bok. 1998. “Is Fashion Art”. pp. 51-71. In Fashion Theory, Vol. 2, No 1. Lehmann, Ulrich. 2000. Tigersprung, Fashion in Modernity. Cambridge, Massachussetts; London (England): The MIT Press. Man, Paul de. 1970. „Literary History and Literary Modernity “, pp. 384-404. In Daedelus, Vol. 99, Spring, No. 2. Svendsen, Lars. 2006. Fashion: A Philosophy. London: Reaktion Books. Wilson, Elisabeth. 1985. Adorned in Dreams. Fashion and Modernity. London and New York: I.B.Tauris. All the relevant texts for this seminar will be provided on Moodle Last update: Kubalík Štěpán, Mgr., Ph.D. (17.06.2024)
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