How the (female) body became political in the 70s and 80s

Examining Film and Fashion as Bodily Media

**Course information is only available in English.**

Delve into the worlds of fashion and film from the 70s and 80s! You will learn to explore and analyse the liminal role of the body in both media.

Throughout the second feminist wave and the sexual revolutions from 1968, the female body has become political. Questions of cultural identity, class struggle and revolutionary potentials started to shift from discursive approaches to the space of bodily manifestations. Both film and fashion have become exemplary media for the aesthetic expression of the new role of the human body.

During the seminar, we aim to examine the role that film and fashion can take in constituting the (female) body as a political field. We want to bring together a geographically decentralized perspective with a concrete analysis of body depictions and conceptions in fashion and film. Connecting theoretical work concerning the human body as a political field with the practical questions of how to analyse film and fashion (as overlapping media), this seminar focuses on cross-media analysis on the one hand and political aesthetics on the other hand.

Exemplary material of analysis will include Canonical films such as Pier Paolo Pasolini’s 120 days of Sodom (IT, 1975) as much as internationally less well-known examples from Brazil and Japan such as Lady on the Bus (BRA, 1978) and Ecstasy of the Angels (JPN, 1972). In terms of fashion, we will analyse the role of Japanese designers such as Rei Kawakubo and Issey Miyake within the fashion system of the 80s. Additionally, we will examine the female body and radical fashion as a form of feminist protest. The objective of the seminar hence also includes bringing the different cultural backgrounds of the participants into a fruitful dialogue.

We consider the online part of the class as an important step for creating a common ground of discussion. A theoretical basis will be worked out through text discussions and close readings. We will also start looking at the material and working on analytical tools. During the week in March spent in Weimar we will take the next step in connecting theory and practice. We would like to invite the whole Spring School to film screenings at the Lichthaus Cinema in Weimar which may include short presentations by the participants. If possible, we would also like to include guest lectures related to the seminar. Viewing the material together and connecting it to the previously outlined theories and methods, promises to create space for thematically profound discussions.

NOTE:
This course includes a 5-day attendance phase in Weimar from March 10 to March 18, 2022.

Bachelor (from the 3rd semester) and Master students of media studies, cultural studies, film studies, gender studies, cultural anthropology, intercultural communication, art history, fashion studies and other adjacent fields

Hannah Peuker

Hannah Peuker is a doctoral candidate at the DFG Research Training Group “Media Anthropology” at Bauhaus University Weimar, Germany. She is writing her thesis on bodily aesthetics in transnational erotic cinemas of the 1970s with a special focus on Brazilian, Japanese, and Italian cinema. She has completed her international master’s degree in “Audiovisual and Cinema Studies” at Goethe University Frankfurt, Germany, including research periods in São Paulo, Barcelona and Montreal. During her studies, she received a scholarship from the Studienstiftung des deutschen Volkes. Her research areas include film analysis and -historiography, transcultural studies, world cinema, affect theory and bodily aesthetics.

Charlotte Brachtendorf

Charlotte Brachtendorf is a PhD candidate at the research training group “Media Anthropology”, funded by the German Research Foundation at the Bauhaus University in Weimar. In her doctoral thesis, she is investigating the embodiment and materialities of digital fashion on Instagram. She has graduated with the M.A. in Fashion Critical Studies at Central Saint Martins (University of the Arts London, UK) in 2019 and the M.A. in Media Cultural Studies from the University of Freiburg (Germany) in 2018. During this time, she has also studied abroad in Oxford, Tokyo, and Singapore. She has received scholarships from Cusanuswerk and the Baden-Württemberg Stiftung. Her research interests extend from fashion theory, cultures and imagery to digital media, posthumanisms and new materialism.

Your application should be submitted until October 31, 2022.
Required application documents: