DRAMATIC ART 475 / 475H

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Look at the end for useful information about policies and campus resources.

April 30, 2021: The vocabulary lists have been updated.

Professor Bobbi Owen owenbob@unc.edu

Office: 213 Joan H. Gillings Center for Dramatic Art; 919 962-2483

Office Hours: 8:00 to 9:00 AM and 11- AM to Noon Tuesday and Thursday (via phone or in person)

Overview:

This course surveys traditional clothing forms worn in selected areas of the African Continent, in Asia (primarily Japan and China, and on the Arabian peninsula, with a brief consideration of India (and perhaps Korea and/or Vietnam). The course is primarily in lecture format and relies heavily on visual information presented through images and garments. Students are expected to learn and understand the historical context by making visual connections between the garments worn and the societies and cultures in which they occur.

The course home page, with links to the vocabulary lists can be found at: http://www.bobbiowen.info//DRAM475-2021/index.html.

Texts: 

Required

• Norio Yamanaka: The Book of Kimono

Highly Recommended

• Patricia Rieff Anawalt: The Worldwide History of Dress (out of print)
• Angela Fisher: Africa Adorned (out of print)

Graded Assignments:

• Mid-term: 30%, March 23, 2021
• Research paper: 30%, April 22, 2021 (at 5:00 PM); topic due February 25, 2021
• Clipping File: 10%, Tuesday, May 4, 2021
• Final Exam: 30%: Tuesday May 11, 2021 from 8-11 AM (ACCORDING TO OFFICIAL SCHEDULE)

Research Paper:

A 10 page paper (exclusive of illustrations) worth 30% of your grade is due on April 22, 2021 by 5:00 PM. The topic is a detailed analysis and context (historical and visual) of particular set of tradiitonal dress which could be a personal object or one in the NowesArk study collection in the Department of Dramatic Art at http://costumes.unc.edu/costar/homes/NowesArk.jsp. It is possible for you to examine the garments in the study collection, on an appointment basis. Your choice must be reviewed and approved by the instructor on or before February 25, 2021. Your choice should be identified by name and illustration and be accompanied by a preliminary bibliography containing at least three viable sources.

The paper is to be based on research (most likely in print or e-book) as well as your observations and must be properly formatted following MLA Style. In addition to a bibliography (or Works Cited and Works Consulted) a List of Illustrations will be necessary. While the Internet is an amazing resource, much of the material available about traditional clothing is on pages maintained to sell objects, as a hobby, or as a site meant to attract tourists. You must be especially careful about citing information obtained from an Internet site for this research paper unless it is from a reputable source that contains citation information and attribution. Electronic databases and resources are useful and appropriate. Many of them are included on the resource database prepared by a former research librarian at Davis Library at UNC-Chapel Hill (note that it has not been updated recently).

The paper must contain some original contribution rather than be simply a summary of your research. Papers should not contain any generic information of the sort that begins “People in all cultures wear clothing” and contemporary jargon should be avoided as should first-person narratives.

Possible approaches include:

1. Examination of a complete garment including material, provenance and historical analysis, such as
   1. Japanese haori or kosode or furisode
   2. Korean hanbok
   3. Chinese robe
   4. Obi
   5. Footwear, such as geta or zori
   6. Indian sari
2. Textiles, painting and dyeing techniques, embroidery and sewing techniques, etc. inspired by a particular garment
3. Focus on the materials, processes, or methods for creating or ornamenting particular garments such as indigo dyes, beading, silk production, bark cloth, batik, cowrie shells, etc.

Successful papers will include a thorough definition of the garment and an understanding of an historical period or cultural context to which it belongs. In other words, why is more important than what. The ideal audience for the paper will be reasonably bright fellow students with little background in the history of clothes. For all papers, illustrations of the object and similar ones will be a necessary part of the final product (and do not count as part of the text requirement of 10 pages). Fair use means that photocopied and properly cited illustrations for classroom use are allowed under current copyright laws. Late papers will be penalized by losing one letter grade per day (every day) if submitted after 4:00 PM on the due date. Students who write excellent papers will have their research used on the NowesArk website, with appropriate attribution included.

To cite illustrations available for viewing/downloading via the World Wide Web by means of Google or another Web browser, provide the following information:

• the author's (artist's) name (if known) and/or the location of it
• the full title of the document in quotation marks
• the title of the complete work if applicable in italics
• the date of publicity or last revision (if available)
• the full http address (URL) enclosed within angle brackets
• the date of visit in parentheses  (The date of visit is included because Internet sites change so frequently. It may be advisable to print a copy as documentation.)

Example: Metropolitan Museum of Art. "Kosode with Shells and Sea Grasses." Early 17th Century. <https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/50688> (7 December 2020)

Clipping file:

Personal appearance provides information about an individual in any culture and is an important, if often misleading, form of communication. These visual clues are used by the media, artists, and in advertising. During the semester keep your eyes open for examples of ethnicity in dress used in western culture (such as Coca Cola ads using strip cloth) as well as the appearance of traditional forms in the news, such as Hamid Karzai wearing an astrakhan hat, women in chador, or former Secretary-General of the UN, Ban Ki-moon, in Korean dress. Develop a clipping file containing about 50 items divided into African, Asian, Arabian Peninsula-based forms, and miscellaneous categories. The clipping file can be presented in print (a scrapbook), as a link to a Tumblr site (Pinterest is not appropriate), or as a PowerPoint file on a jump drive (which will be returned); the Dropbox feature on the course Sakai site is also possible. You may use articles, comic strips, advertisements, photographs, etc. from current newspapers, magazines, or other sources (like DVD covers or posters), web sources (blogs, Facebook, Pinterest, etc..) such as http://www.marquise.de/, http://www.recklessbeading.blogspot.com/, and http://www.dalailama.com/ provided you can cite the original source. You may not use National Geographic or similar periodicals, any clipping dated before January 1, 2016, or anything Xeroxed from books (electronic or in print, including the texts) although Xeroxes are acceptable. This project is not a library-based historical research one; rather it uses images available in the contemporary world. It is possible to successfully complete this project by reading little more than The Daily Tar Heel and Sports Illustrated and shopping at the mall or grocery store. The clipping file can be presented electronically (beware big files) or in print. It must come from a variety of sources (do not Google kimono) and be organized in a coherent way. You must annotate your illustrations with comments and sources (such as The Daily Tar Heel, March 1, 2021 or the ethnic pages at http://www.marquise.de/, January 5, 2021, etc.) Your comments should reveal your increasing understanding of the cultural factors present in costume forms. The grade for this assignment is based on the quality of the illustrations and whether the comments contain insights. The clipping file is due in dropbox on the course Sakai site by 5:00 PM on the last day of class, May 4, 2021

Course Schedule: