Although scholars have long considered the material conditions surrounding the production of early modern drama, until now, no book-length examination has sought to explain what was worn on the ...period's stages and, more importantly, how articles of apparel were understood when seen by contemporary audiences. Robert Lublin's new study considers royal proclamations, religious writings, paintings, woodcuts, plays, historical accounts, sermons, and legal documents to investigate what Shakespearean actors actually wore in production and what cultural information those costumes conveyed. Four of the chapters of Costuming the Shakespearean Stage address 'categories of seeing': visually based semiotic systems according to which costumes constructed and conveyed information on the early modern stage. The four categories include gender, social station, nationality, and religion. The fifth chapter examines one play, Thomas Middleton's A Game at Chess, to show how costumes signified across the categories of seeing to establish a play's distinctive semiotics and visual aesthetic.
What does it mean to people around the world to put on costumes to celebrate their heritage, reenact historic events, assume a role on stage, or participate in Halloween or Carnival? Self-consciously ...set apart from everyday dress, costume marks the divide between ordinary and extraordinary settings and enables the wearer to project a different self or special identity. Pravina Shukla offers richly detailed case studies from the United States, Brazil, and Sweden to show how individuals use costumes for social communication and to express facets of their personalities.
This beautifully illustrated book conveys the centrality of costume to live performance. Finding associations between contemporary practices and historical manifestations, costume is explored in six ...thematic chapters, examining the transformative ritual of costuming; choruses as reflective of society; the grotesque, transgressive costume; the female sublime as emancipation; costume as sculptural art in motion; and the here-and-now as history. Viewing the material costume as a crucial aspect in the preparation, presentation, and reception of live performance, the book brings together costumed performances through history. These range from ancient Greece to modern experimental productions, from medieval theatre to modernist dance, from the “fashion plays” to contemporary Shakespeare, marking developments in both culture and performance. Revealing the relationship between dress, the body, and human existence, and acknowledging a global as well as an Anglo and Eurocentric perspective, this book shows costume’s ability to cross both geographical and disciplinary borders. Through it, we come to question the extent to which the material costume actually co-authors the performance itself, speaking of embodied histories, states of being, and never-before imagined futures, which come to life in the temporary space of the performance. With a contribution by Melissa Trimingham, University of Kent, UK.
The Great Hanis an ethnographic study of the Han Clothing Movement,a neotraditionalist and racial nationalist movement that has emerged in China since 2001. Participants come together both online and ...in person in cities across China to revitalize their utopian vision of the authentic "Great Han" and corresponding "real China" through pseudotraditional ethnic dress, reinvented Confucian ritual, and anti-foreign sentiment. Analyzing the movement's ideas and practices, this book argues that the vision of a pure, perfectly ordered, ethnically homogeneous, and secure society is in fact a fantasy constructed in response to the challenging realities of the present. Yet this national imaginary is reproduced precisely through its own perpetual elusiveness.The Great Hanis a pioneering analysis of Han identity, nationalism, and social movements in a rapidly changing China.
Set in Arequipa during Peru's recent years of crisis, this ethnography reveals how dress creates gendered bodies. It explores why people wear clothes, why people make art, and why those things matter ...in a war-torn land. Blenda Femenías argues that women's clothes are key symbols of gender identity and resistance to racism.
Moving between metropolitan Arequipa and rural Caylloma Province, the central characters are the Quechua- and Spanish-speaking maize farmers and alpaca herders of the Colca Valley. Their identification as Indians, whites, and mestizos emerges through locally produced garments calledbordados.Because the artists who create these beautiful objects are also producers who carve an economic foothold, family workshops are vital in a nation where jobs are as scarce as peace. But ambiguity permeates all practices shapingbordados' significance. Femenías traces contemporary political and ritual applications, not only Caylloma's long-standing and violent ethnic conflicts, to the historical importance of cloth since Inca times.
This is the only book about expressive culture in an Andean nation that centers on gender. In this feminist contribution to ethnography, based on twenty years' experience with Peru, including two years of intensive fieldwork, Femenías reflects on the ways gender shapes relationships among subjects, research, and representation.
Commissioned by the Qianlong emperor in 1751, the Qing Imperial Illustrations of Tributary Peoples (Huang Qing zhigong tu 皇清職貢圖), is a captivating work of art and an ideological statement of ...universal rule best understood as a cultural cartography of empire. This translation of the ethnographic texts accompanied by a full-color reproduction of Xie Sui’s (謝遂) hand-painted scroll helps us to understand the conceptualization of imperial tributary relationships the work embodies as rooted in both dynastic history and the specifics of Qing rule.
Clothes Make the Man Hotchkiss, Valerie R.
1996, 20121112, 2012-11-12, Letnik:
1991
eBook
In this book, the author explores medieval society's fascination with the cross-dressed woman. The author examines a wide variety of religious, literary, and historical sources, which record ...interpretations of sartorial attempts to overcome gender hierarchy and also illustrate, mainly through the device of inversion, a remarkably sustained desire to examine and reexamine the nature of social gender identities.
From Jack the Ripper to Frankenstein, Halloween customs to Alexander McQueen collections, Fashioning Horror examines how terror is fashioned visually, symbolically, and materially through fashion and ...costume, in literature, film, and real life. With a series of case studies that range from sensationalist cinema and slasher films to true crime and nineteenth-century literature, the volume investigates the central importance of clothing to the horror genre, and broadens our understanding of both material and popular culture. Arguing that dress is fundamental to our understanding of character and setting within horror, the chapters also reveal how the grotesque and horrific is at the center of fashion itself, with its potential for instability, disguise, and carnivalesque subversion. Packed with original research, and bringing together a range of international scholars, the book is the first to thoroughly examine the aesthetics of terror and the role of fashion in the construction of horror.
When, how and why do clothes become fashion? Fashion is more than mere clothing. It is a moment of invention, a distillation of desire, a reflection of a zeitgeist. It is also a business relying on ...an intricate network of manufacture, marketing and retail. Fashion is both medium and message but it does not explain itself. It requires language and images for its global mediation. It develops from the prescience of the designer and is dependent on acceptance by observers and wearers alike. When Clothes Become Fashion explores the structures and strategies which underlie fashion innovation, how fashion is perceived and the point at which clothing is accepted or rejected as fashion. The book provides a clear theoretical framework for understanding the world of fashion - its aesthetic premises, plurality of styles, performative impulses, social qualities and economic conditions.
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