Bard Graduate Center is excited to announce our 2022 Undergraduate Summer School in Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture. Open to undergraduates and recent college graduates, the program draws on resources at BGC and around New York City to provide an intensive, two-week program on material culture studies. Our topic for 2022 is “Re-Dress and Re-Form: Innovations in the History of Fashion and Design, 1850 to Today.” The course will introduce students to the history of design and fashion in the United States and Europe from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, with an emphasis on the revolutionary significance of this period for both fields. In particular, the course will explore how the interconnected nature of social categorizations including race, class, and gender create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination and disadvantage. Led by professor Freyja Hartzell and PhD candidate Pierre-Jean Desemerie, this summer school will combine small seminars and behind-the-scenes access to collections. Eligible for 3 upper-level undergraduate credits.
Program dates: Wednesday, July 6–Tuesday, July 19, 2022
Applications due: April 15, 2022
Contact: [email protected]
Re-Dress and Re-Form: Innovations in the History of Fashion and Design, 1850 to Today
This two-week summer course will introduce students to the history of design and fashion in the United States and Europe from the mid-nineteenth century to the present day, with an emphasis on the revolutionary significance of this period for both fields. In particular, the course will explore how the interconnected nature of social categorizations including race, class, and gender create overlapping and interdependent systems of discrimination and disadvantage. How did these cultural intersections inform and inflect the major issues and debates that have characterized and constructed European and American histories of clothing and objects? We will also consider how historical and contemporary practices of museums, dealers, and collectors shape our conceptions of the material past. Beginning around 1850, this two-week course will trace key themes and developments in fashion and design scholarship in conjunction with more recent critical responses, examining national traditions; the emergence of new materials and technologies; the formation of museum collections; and how conceptions of race, gender, and class have shaped the world of goods as we know it.
Morning seminars will be followed by afternoon supervised visits to New York collections, often with curators and conservators bringing special insights into the ways in which dress and designed objects are interpreted. This combination of academic discourse complemented by close examination of specific items central to the themes of the course will give students a rich understanding of both the intellectual and material aspects of fashion and design.
- Seminars taught by Bard Graduate Center faculty
- Visits to New York City museums and collections
- Access to Bard Graduate Center’s Library, Digital Media Lab, and Object Lab
Eligibility
Currently enrolled undergraduate students and recent graduates from an accredited institution may apply. Recommended majors: art history, anthropology, archaeology, classics, gender and sexuality studies, fashion studies, museum studies, religious studies.
All students must be in good academic and disciplinary standing and have a minimum GPA of 3.0.
Bard Graduate Center is unable to provide visa sponsorship for foreign nationals to participate in this program. International participants must have authorization from their sponsoring institution before they enroll and/or be in an immigration status that allows them to register for academic coursework.
How To Apply
Apply here.Deadlines
April 15 - Applications due
May 1 - Notification
May 15 - Decisions and deposits due
Fees/Aid
- Tuition: $5,500 (3 credits)*
- Tuition: $2,750 (not for credit)*
- Housing: $725
Limited scholarship money is available. Priority will be given to those taking the course for credit. Students who wish to be considered for scholarships must complete a FASFA by April 15, 2022. Bard Graduate Center’s FAFSA number is 002671.
For those seeking housing through BGC, housing is provided at Bard Hall, our housing facility near Columbus Circle, a short distance from BGC. Students will share spacious two-bedroom apartments that include private bedrooms and shared common areas, kitchens, and bathrooms. The cost for the two weeks is $725 per student.
