Call for Papers

Inside/Out: Dress and Identity in German Literature, Performance,
and Art

Annual Graduate Student Conference, Department of Germanic
Languages and Literatures
University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, U.S.A.
February 5, 2010
Keynote Address: Daniel Purdy, Director of German Graduate Studies,
Pennsylvania State University

Friedrich Logau once rhymed: "Alamode-Kleider, Alamode-Sinnen;
Wie sichs wandelt aussen, wandelt sichs auch innen." Regardless
of how fleeting fashions might be, Logau's 17th-century
identification of the link between exterior and interior remains
timeless. This conference aims to explore the relationship between
dress and identity in German literature, theater, film, television,
and the visual arts. How do clothes "speak" and what do they say?
In what sense can they represent identity, or in some cases,
misrepresent it? Do clothes lend expression to or leave an
impression on what lies beneath them?

Possible topics might include but are not limited to:
- clothing as an expressive device
- metaphors of clothing
- exoticism
- uniforms and uniformity
- disguises, masks, concealment
- nudity and transparency
- gender
- religious and cultural signification
- the production of clothing
- costumes
- mending clothes
- accessories as symbols
- tableaux vivants
- historical reenactments

Please e-mail abstracts (max. 300 words) to
InsideOutPenn2010gmail.com on or

before December 28, 2009.

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