180 research outputs found
Hair without a head: disembodiment and the uncanny
No full textThis essay concerns itself with disembodied hair and will show via the discussion of a range of cultural and historical examples that such hair is, in Freudian terms, uncanny. It makes connections between hair’s place in memorial, ritual and magic, to emphasise its ambiguous and in some cases troubled relationship to the rest of the human body.
The essay explores the relationship between disembodied hair, the ghostly, and specific historical and cultural contexts that make the use of uncanny hair of this kind an enduring motif in the representation of the spectral and the supernatural.
Publisher's Text About the Book:
Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion explores the social importance of hair, wherever it grows, explaining the cultural significance of hair and hairiness, and presenting a new critical engagement with hair and its stories, histories, performances and rituals.
From heads, legs and underarms, to wigs and beards, and everything in between, the presentation, manipulation and daily experience of human hair plays a central and dynamic role within fashion, self-expression and the creation of social identity. The book's diverse range of cross-cultural essays encompasses the study of hair in fashion, film, art, history, literature, performance and consumer culture.
Offering an accessible mix of visual analysis, cultural commentary and critical theory, Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion will appeal to all those interested in the presentation and analysis of cultural identity and the body.
Contents
Acknowledgments
Foreword, Caroline Cox
Author's Biographies
1. Introduction: Thinking About Hair, Geraldine Biddle-Perry And Sarah Cheang
Part One: Histories of Hair On the Head, Face and Body
2. Fashionable Hair In The Eighteenth Century: Theatricality and Display, Louisa Cross,
3. Roots: Hair and Race, Sarah Cheang
4. Revealing and Concealing: Notes and Observations on Eroticism and Female Pubic Hair, Jack Sargeant
5. From Style to Place: The Emergence Of The Hair Salon in the Twentieth Century, Kim Smith
6. The Big Shave: Fashions In Modern Male Facial Hair, Dene October
Part Two: Hair & Identity
7. Hair And Male (Homo) Sexuality: Up Top And Down Below, Shaun Cole
8. Hair, Gender And Looking, Geraldine Biddle-Perry
9. Men's Facial Hair in Islam: A Matter of Interpretation, Faegheh Shirazi
10. Resounding Power Of The Afro Comb, Carol Tulloch
11. Concerning Blondeness: Gender, Ethnicity, Spectacle And Footballers' Waves, Pamela Church-Gibson
12. Hair, devotion and trade in India, Eiluned Edwards
Part Three: Hair in Representation: Film, Art, Fashion, Literature & Performance
13. Hairpieces: Hair, Identity and Memory in the Work of Mona Hatoum, Leila McKellar
14. Hair Without a Head: Disembodiment and The Uncanny, Janice Miller
15. Hair and Fashioned Femininity in Two Nineteenth-Century Novels, Royce Mahawatte.
16. Hair control: The Feminine 'Disciplined Head', Thom Hecht
17. Hair-'Dressing' In Desperate Housewives: Narration, Characterisation, And The Pleasures Of Reading Hair, Rachel Velody
18. Hair Styling In The Fashion Magazine: Nova In The 1970s, Alice Beard
Conclusion
19. Conclusion: Hair and Human Identity, Sarah Cheang and Geraldine Biddle-Perry
End Notes
Inde
Global connections and fashion histories: East Asian embroidered garments
No full textEmbroidered garments have played a key role in the global spread of Japanese and Chinese fashions. This chapter readdresses the categories of national, transnational and global using Asian perspectives and object-led studies of fashion history and embroidery. By placing emphasis on ways to follow embroidery’s movements within East Asia, and between East Asia and other parts of the world, it explores the impossibility of grasping and defining globalization (a question often raised in transnational studies). Rooting the research in East Asia also provokes a series of rejoinders to on-going Eurocentric tendencies in global fashion studies and proposes new models for understanding fashion and postcolonialism. The chapter uses two new examples of transnational fashion research to catalyze an active discussion of East Asian fashion histories as globally connected. A study of early 20th century Chinese embroidered shawls reveals the transformations involved in transmission between China, the Philippines, Latin America, Spain and England. This enables a new history of Asian-American-European interactions to be written that does not privilege Europe and North America, nor create a simplistic narrative of ‘exotic’ components in European fashion. Likewise, tracing the movement of the sukajan, or souvenir jacket from Japan, where it was first embroidered by the Japanese for U.S. occupying forces, to Vietnam, where it was reinterpreted during the Vietnam War, to its international appearance in popular films, demonstrates a complex but fluid and sustained transmittal dialogue in which Asian and North American players actively feature and interact. By bridging the gap between cultural studies and the material evidence of museum collections, and centering the study of cultural flows of fashion on East Asia, more satisfying ways are found to challenge binary constructions of East/West, traditional/modern, which are an insufficient model for understanding the complexities of global flow but that continue to haunt fashion studies
Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion
No full textThis book, edited by Cheang with G. Biddle-Perry offers the first thorough examination of the social importance of the expressive, representational and material possibilities of human hair. The presentation, manipulation and daily experience of human hair are situated within the processes of inscribing cultural meaning, through a complex network of normalising standards and discursive practices. Approaching a diversity of contexts, from classical ballet to television sitcoms, and from India to the East End, this collection examines hair across age, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality. In addition to co-editing the collection, Cheang co-authored wrote the substantial introductory and concluding essays, which offer an original synthesis of cultural studies and anthropological approaches to the study of hair. Cheang also wrote the chapter ‘Roots: Hair and Race’, a 6,000-word essay that analyses museum collections of hair in relation to constructions of ‘race’ (pp.27–42). In particular, Cheang worked with medical, anthropological and natural history collections that include both samples of human hair and photographs. These primary sources are analysed in the context of a critical reading of 19th-century literature that attempted to explain ‘racial difference’. Extending this research, Cheang and Biddle-Perry co-wrote a new 10,000-word entry on ‘Hair’ for the November 2011 online update to the Berg Encylopedia of World Dress and Fashion. Other closely related activities included the organisation and moderation by Cheang and Biddle-Perry of the international symposium ‘Hair Stories: Practice, Theory, Culture’ at the V&A Museum (2009). Following publication of Hair: Styling, Culture and Fashion, Cheang was invited to comment on the meaning of hair collecting and beauty styling in the popular media, including Vogue (2011), The Stylist (2011), Observer Magazine (2013), Elle Canada website (2013), and in the television series programme Taboo (National Geographic Channel)
MoDA Podcast Season 3, Episode 2, The empire at home
No full textAna Baeza Ruiz talks to Deborah Sugg Ryan and Sarah Cheang about how the British Empire shaped our everyday experiences of home
What's in a Chinese Room? 20th Century Chinoiserie, Modernity and Femininity
No full textThe first three decades of the twentieth century saw a resurgence in chinoiserie in the West. This chapter uses primary sources to provide an original exploration of the ways in which 'Chinese' styles of interior design, furniture and fashion were used in Britain to communicate modern feminine identities. Marked out as an indulgent, fanciful, and hence feminine and irrational style choice, early 20th century British chinoiserie drew heavily on its previous incarnations, such as 18th century wallpapers and Chippendale chinoiserie chairs, and yet fitted well with the colour and exoticism of modern art and design. Both old and new, elite yet commonplace, the fantastical but reassuringly familiar nature of 'Chinese' design made chinoiserie a potent vehicle for the expression of modern British femininities. The chapter forms the culmination of an edited collection produced as the catalogue for the exhibition 'Chinese Whispers: Chinoiserie in Britain 1650-1930', Brighton Museum and the Royal Pavilion, 3 May- 2 November 2008, of which Sarah Cheang curated the 20th century section. The exhibition received extensive and highly positive national press coverage and was awarded Best Temporary Exhibition at the Museum and Heritage Awards 2009. The catalogue was praised as ‘insightful’ and the ‘What’s in a Chinese Room’ essay was singled out as ‘excellent’ (Burlington Magazine October 2008) and widely quoted. The production of the catalogue was supported by a Paul Mellon grant
Decolonizando o Currículo? transformação, emoções e posicionamento docente: urgência que cruza caminhos, geografias e posicionalidades
No full textThe article is an oral transcription from the closing keynote panel entitled Decolonizing the Curriculum? Transformation, Emotion, and Positionality in Teaching, at the 18th Fashion International Colloquium, at the University of Fortaleza, UNIFOR, Brazil, on September 23rd, Saturday, at ten in the morning. The panel was composed of the designers-researchers Douglas Santos and Letícia Vieira, who graduated from the Federal University of Ceará (UFC), and Professor Sarah Cheang, whose presentation text was a joint work with her colleague Professor Shehnaz Suterwalla, from the Royal College of Art, London, United Kingdon. Mi Medrado, who mediated the panel, previously translated the conference presentation.Este artículo es la transcripción oral del panel de clausura titulado ¿Descolonizar el currículo? Transformación, Emociones y Posicionamiento Docente, en el XVIII Coloquio de Moda, en la Universidad de Fortaleza, UNIFOR, Brasil, el sábado 23 de septiembre, a las diez de la mañana. El panel fue integrado por los diseñadores-investigadores Douglas Santos y Letícia Vieira, graduados de la Universidad Federal de Ceará, y la profesora Sarah Cheang, quien compartió en su presentación un texto escrito con la profesora Shehnaz Suterwalla, del Royal College of Art, Londres, Estados Unidos. Reino. La presentación del panel fue previamente traducida por Mi Medrado, quien también medió en la conferencia.Esse artigo é a transcrição oral da mesa encerramento intitulada Decolonizando o Currículo? Transformação, Emoções e Posicionamento Docente, do 18º Colóquio de Moda, na Universidade de Fortaleza, UNIFOR, Brasil, no dia 23 de setembro, sábado, às dez da manhã. A mesa foi composta pelos designers-pesquisadores Douglas Santos e Letícia Vieira, formados pela Universidade Federal do Ceará, e Professora Sarah Cheang, que compartilhou em sua apresentação texto escrito com a Professora Shehnaz Suterwalla, do Royal College of Art, Londres, Reino Unido. A apresentação da conferência foi traduzida previamente por Mi Medrado, que também mediou a conferência
To the Ends of the Earth: Fashion and Ethnicity in the Vogue Fashion Shoot
No full textThis essay examines how particular concepts of fashion, and fashion’s Other – ethnic dress – have been reproduced in British Vogue since the mid 2000s, a period of renewed attention to issues of race within the fashion media. It builds on recent scholarly redefinitions of ‘fashion’ that include the non-Western, and has played an integral formative role in Cheang’s current project of critically positioning fashion studies within current global history debates. In this essay, Cheang explores the implicit and explicit ways in which constructions of ‘fashion’ and the ‘ethnic’ are played out in the work of fashion photographers Mario Testino, Patrick Demarchelier and Tim Walker. Cheang undertook comprehensive analysis of Vogue Magazine content from a five-year period and conducted interviews with key protagonists. The research was first conducted to present a provocative position paper for the opening session of the international conference ‘Fashion Media: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow’ (London College of Fashion, 2010), which brought together leading voices in fashion research to debate key issues in fashion imagery and communication. It challenges and interrogates the use of racial and ethnic stereotypes in current fashion photography, to stimulate new critiques of Western fashion’s visual and conceptual regimes of racial difference. While fashion has become a central field of enquiry in social and cultural studies, the fashion media that form a crucial part of contemporary visual culture remain largely under-researched. This chapter appears in a groundbreaking collection of essays that bring a new critical awareness to the circulation of fashion’s digital, print and film cultures. Like the work of other authors at the forefront of the field, such as Professor Reina Lewis, Professor Simona Segre Reinach and Dr Djurdja Barlett, Cheang’s chapter is integral to an exploration of the complex multi-layered processes that bind design, technology, society and identity together
Chinese robes in Western interiors: transitionality and transformation
No full textCheang’s essay is a contribution to a peer-reviewed collection of essays exploring the relationship between interior design and fashion, the body, fabric, and space since the 18th century. An authority on Asian fashion who has shaped new critical approaches to dress and colonial subjectivities, Cheang first conducted the research for this paper for ‘Fashioning Diaspora Space’, an international AHRC-funded research project conference at the V&A Museum (2009). Cheang researched the fashion of chinoiserie in late 19th-century Britain and, in particular, the ‘biographies’ of Chinese robes and sleeve bands in their journey to Britain in a period which saw the escalation of imperialist attitudes towards China. Incorporated into the lives of British women as clothing and interior design, these garments were drawn into powerful discourses of femininity, sexuality and race. Cheang’s original research materials included various forms of representation, including painted portraits and documentary photographs, trade and retail catalogues, and contemporary reports in the press. Cheang’s approach to the consumption and representation of these garments is to understand them within a moral economy of style and aesthetics, class and gender, race and imperialism, sexuality and the body, and the contradictory individualist ethic of the phenomenon of fashion. In this way, her essay advances an original argument which extends far beyond the conventional stylistic analysis of these garments in previous histories of the decorative arts or their understanding as ‘souvenirs’ of imperial China. Published reviews of this work have drawn attention to the centrality of her examples and the breadth of her analysis, one identifying it as a thought-provoking model for the writing of textile history within a volume that pays particular attention to concepts of transformation, translation and transition (Textile History, May 2012)
Chthamalus williamsi Chan & Cheang, 2015, sp. nov.
No full textChthamalus williamsi sp. nov. Figures 2–5 Material examined. Holotype. NMNS-006534-00001. Intertidal rocks (low shores, at the same tidal zone as Megabalanus volcano) at Shi-Ti-Ping, Hualien, Taiwan (23 ° 29.30 ’N, 121 ° 30.30 ’E, 12 May 2009). Paratype. NMNS-006534-00002. Cheng Gong, Taitung, Taiwan (23 °05.46’N, 121 ° 22.33 ’E, 0 2 Sep. 2008). Paratype. ASIZCR-000328. Cheng Gong, Taitung, Taiwan (23 °05.46’N, 121 ° 22.33 ’E, 0 2 Sep. 2008). Diagnosis. Shell conical; 6 plates, external surfaces white, smooth or with faint ribs; scutum equilateral triangular, tergal articular margin straight, external surface of scutum with horizontal striations; tergum triangular, scutal articular margin straight, spur blunt. Description. Shell small, about 3.0 mm basal diameter, conical; 6 plates (rostrum, carina, paired lateral and paired rostral-lateral; Fig. 2 A–D), externally white, surface smooth or with faint ribs, inner operculum pale orangecoloured; carina and rostrum with a pair of alae, carina short and wide, alae large; rostrum long and narrow, alae large; rostral-lateral triangular, interior surface with central mid rib, radii wide; lateral base wide, alae and radii present (Fig. 2 D); scutum white, triangular, tergal articular margin straight, perpendicular to basal margin, articular ridge not prominent, long with length extending 2 / 3 length of tergal articular margin, articular furrow narrow, deep, occludent margin inclined with fine teeth, scutal adductor scar oval, obvious, external surface of scutum with horizontal striations (Fig. 2 E, F); tergum white, triangular, scutal articular margin straight, extending down to spur, spur blunt, wide, about ½ width of basal margin, articular furrow wide, shallow, basal margin slightly concave (Fig. 2 E, F), 5 fine depressor crests at basal margin, external surface striated. Cirrus I without conical spines on dorsal surface, posterior ramus 5 -segmented, anterior ramus 6 -segmented (Fig. 3 A), both rami with serrulate setae, setae without basal guard (Fig. 4 A–C); cirrus II, anterior ramus 5 - segmented, posterior ramus 7 -segmented (Fig. 3 B), both rami with 2 types of serrulate setae, bidentate and plumose setae, all setae without basal guard (Figs 4 D–F, 5 K, L); cirrus III with rami equal length, anterior ramus 14 -segmented, posterior ramus 12 -segmented (Figs 3 C, 4 G), intermediate segments of cirrus III composed of 5 pairs of long serrulate setae (Fig. 4 H, I); cirrus IV with anterior ramus 14 -segmented, posterior ramus 15 - segmented (Fig. 3 D); cirrus V with anterior ramus 18 -segmented, posterior ramus 15 -segmented (Fig. 3 E), intermediate segments of both rami with 3 pairs of long serrulate setae and 2 pairs of shorter setae (Fig. 4 J); cirrus VI with anterior ramus 19 -segmented, posterior ramus 17 -segmented, intermediate segments of anterior and posterior rami composed of 3 pairs of long serrulate setae and 2 pairs of shorter setae (Fig. 4 K); penis long, slender, sparse setae along length, tip with dense bundle of setae (Fig. 5 I, J). Maxilla bilobed, serrulate setae on both lobes (Fig. 5 A, B); maxillule notched, 3 large setae above notch, 16 setae below notch (Fig. 5 C, D); mandible with 4 teeth, fourth bidentate, lower margin straight, with 14 setae, inferior angle with pair of large setae (Fig. 5 E, F); labrum concave, notch absent, dense setae at mid region of cutting margin, latter with numerous fine teeth (Fig. 5 G, H). Etymology. Chthamalus williamsi is named in honour of Prof. Gray A. Williams, Director of the Swire Institute of Marine Sciences, School of Biological Science, the University of Hong Kong, for life-long friendship and mentorship with the first author and for his contributions to the intertidal ecology in the South China Sea. Distribution. Chthamalus williamsi sp. nov. is common inside crevices of the mid shore of the intertidal zone, and on the shell surfaces of the barnacle Megabalanus volcano (Pilsbry, 1916) and M. tintinnabulum (Linnaeus, 1758) on low shores of the eastern waters of Taiwan. Chthamalus williamsi has not been identified previously from Taiwan as it is not easily spotted, due to its small size and low shore location. This species is absent from the N and NE coasts of Taiwan although intensive sampling was conducted (Fig. 1), suggesting its distribution may be associated with the Kuroshio Current. Molecular analysis. From both maximum likelihood and Bayesian inference trees of a COI region, Chthamalus williamsi shows a distinct divergence from C. challengeri, C. dalli, C. moro, C. malayensis and C. sinensis (sequence divergence> 0.13 K 2 P distance from all the Chthamalus species compared; Table 1). Chthamalus sinensis and C. neglectus grouped in the same clade, suggesting C. neglectus is a synonym of C. sinensis (see Liu & Ren 2007 for synonyms of C. neglectus and C. sinensis).Published as part of Chan, Benny K. K. & Cheang, Chi Chiu, 2015, A new Chthamalus (Crustacea: Cirripedia) from the challengeri subgroup on Taiwan rocky intertidal shores, pp. 547-558 in Zootaxa 4000 (5) on pages 549-550, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4000.5.4, http://zenodo.org/record/23674
That Feels Like Home podcast S3 episode 2: The Empire at Home
No full textAudio files and transcript of an episode of the podcast That Feels Like Home by the Museum of Domestic Design & Architecture, recorded 19 May 2021 and published 4 October 2021.In this episode MoDA's curator, Ana Baeza talks to Deborah Sugg Ryan, Professor of Design History and Theory at the University of Portsmouth and Dr Sarah Cheang, Head of Programme for the V&A Museum/RCA History of Design (MA, MPhil, PhD) in London about how many familiar domestic objects within Britain’s homes are intimately linked to imperial histories and geographies and how homemaking has connected the idea of the household to ideas about the nation and empire.</p
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