WGSS 313
Gender, Race, and the Power of Personal Aesthetics Spring 2023
Division II
Cross-listed LATS 313 / AFR 326 / AMST 313 / WGSS 313
This is not the current course catalog

This course focuses on the politics of personal style among women of color in the digital era. With a comparative, transnational emphasis on the ways in which gender, sexuality, ethno-racial identity, neoliberal capitalism and class inform standards of beauty and ideas about the body, we will examine a variety of materials including commercial websites, podcasts, histories, personal narratives, ethnographies, and sociological case studies. Departing from the assumption that personal aesthetics are intimately tied to issues of power and privilege, we will engage the following questions among others: What are some of the everyday functions of personal style among women of color in the US and globally? How do Latina/x, Black, Arab American and Asian American female aesthetics reflect the specific circumstances of their creation? What role do transnational media and popular culture play in the development and circulation of gendered and raced aesthetic forms? How might the belief in personal style as activist strategy complicate traditional understandings of feminist political activity?