COML107 - Topics: Freshman Seminar: Italian Fashion

This course will adopt fashion, which theorists and scholars consider a system of signification and a codified language, as a critical lens to observe important events and movements in Italian history and culture. Specifically, the course will explore Italian society’s economic, social, and political transformations from the Renaissance to the present through the representation of clothes and accessories as they appear in literary texts, paintings, and films. Students will focus on specific topics—such as the role played by clothing in constructing social and gender identity, communicating political and cultural messages during the Renaissance and Fascism, and transforming the natural anatomy of human bodies. At the end of the course, students will learn to look critically at fashion’s socio-cultural and political meanings and acquire a basic knowledge of the evolution and changes of Italian fashion and its influence on the formation of Italy and Italians. Students will discuss works by Michelangelo Antonioni, Agnolo Bronzino, Baldassare Castiglione, Carlo Collodi, Elena Ferrante, Veronica Franco, Rosa Genoni, Agostino Lampugnani, Paola Masino, Alberto Moravia, Matilde Serao, Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa, Paolo Sorrentino, and Cesare Vecellio among others. The course will be taught in English; material and readings will be in English.