Co-presented by IMMEDIATE Fashion School
Fashion forms part of a society’s rich tapestry and can serve as an entry point into contemplating how marginalized and racialized communities understand themselves and their place in the world. Fashion & Justice is a daylong scholarly workshop that examines the role of fashion in challenging inequality through sartorial ingenuity. The schedule includes an analysis of artwork and artistic projects, partial film screenings, and review of relevant literature. Visiting instructors Dr. Jonathan Michael Square (Harvard University) and Kimberly M. Jenkins (Pratt Institute and Parsons School of Design) designed this workshop that looks at designers, artists, journalists, curators, photographers, and academics who explore the fashion system through a critical lens, and invited guest speaker Dr. Lyndon Gill (The University of Texas at Austin, African and African Diaspora Studies) to join the conversation.
More information about this workshop can be found here.
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Jonathan Michael Square, PhD, is a writer and professor of history at Harvard University, specializing in fashion and visual culture in the African Diaspora. Square received a PhD in history from New York University, a master’s from The University of Texas at Austin, and a bachelor’s from Cornell University.
Kimberly M. Jenkins, MA, is a visiting assistant professor of fashion history and theory at Pratt Institute and part-time lecturer at Parsons School of Design. Jenkins specializes in the sociocultural and historical influences behind why we wear what we wear, specifically addressing how politics, psychology, race, and gender shapes the way we "fashion" our identity.
Guest Participant: Lyndon K. Gill, PhD, is currently an Assistant Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at The University of Texas at Austin. He was born in New York City and raised on all the Trinbagonian culture that Jamaica, Queens, would allow. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University with a BA in African & African American Studies. He received his PhD in African American Studies and Anthropology (with a Secondary Field in Studies of Women, Gender & Sexuality) from Harvard University. His scholarship focuses on Queer aesthetics in the African Diaspora, the erotic, LGBT art and activism in Caribbean cultures, African-based spiritual traditions in the Americas, and subjectivity and community building.