Cultural and Historical Studies
Our research, teaching, and knowledge exchange activities are focused on how fashion, everyday dress, art, visual and bodily practices create identities and can be a source of positive collective action and systemic change in the face of economic and social inequalities, structural racism and climate injustice.
We explore the manifold histories and contemporary critical issues of fashion as a transnational cultural production, material culture, image economy, emotional and sensory experience, and a means of political transformation.
We make an impact by cultivating a critical fashion citizenship through sharing and co-creating knowledge with a large, diverse group of LCF undergraduate, masters’ and PhD students as well as with the media, creative and industry practitioners, cultural institutions, and civil society organisations.
We mobilise critical thinking, supported by a compassionate pedagogy of collaborative learning, to imagine possible futures, including democratised fashion systems, based on an understanding of the interdependency of nature, humanity and non-human species; equity for equality; and social, racial and climate justice.
Our research interests are in:
· the politics of identity and difference in human and post-human contexts,
· material culture, embodiment, and sensory experience,
· digitalisation and dematerialisation,
· the global economy of fashion production, appropriation, and labour relations,
· borders, migration, and diasporic communities,
· social movements of resistance and protest, and
· community engagement through critical, including decolonising, queer and trans, pedagogies and practices.
Our researchers
Professor of Fashion Cultures and Histories
Shahidha Bari
Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies
Charlie Athill
Reader in Histories and Cultures of Fashion
Djurdja Bartlett
Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies and Co-Convener of the Masculinities Research Hub.
Jay Bowstead
Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies
Neil Kirkham
Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies
Nikola Mijovic
Head of Cultural and Historical Studies
Caroline Stevenson
Lecturer in Fashion Cultures and Histories
Sara Kwan
Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies
Serkan Delice
Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies
Anne Reimers
Liza Betts, Researcher and Lecturer of Fashion Cultures and Histories
Maria Costantino, Lecturer in Fashion Culture and Histories
Basia Sliwinska,Senior Lecturer in Cultural and Historical Studies
Tony Sullivan, Senior Lecturer in Fashion Cultures and Histories