Uniform: Clothing and Discipline in the Modern World

Description

Uniform: Clothing and Discipline in the Modern World examines the role uniform plays in public life and private experience. This volume explores the social, political, economic, and cultural significance of various kinds of uniforms to consider how they embody gender, class, sexuality, race, nationality, and belief. From the pageantry of uniformed citizens to the rationalizing of time and labour, this category of dress has enabled distinct forms of social organization, sometimes repressive, sometimes utopian. With thematic sections on the social meaning of uniform in the military, in institutions, and political movements, its use in fashion, in the workplace, and at leisure, a series of case studies consider what sartorial uniformity means to the history of the body and society. Ranging from English public school uniform to sacred dress in the Vatican, from Australian airline uniforms to the garb worn by soldiers in combat, Uniform draws attention to a visual and material practice with the power to regulate or disrupt civil society. Bringing together original research from emerging and established academics, this book is essential reading for students and scholars of fashion, design, art, popular culture, anthropology, cultural history, and sociology, as well as anyone interested in what constitutes a “modern” appearance. This edited volume considers new ways of thinking about uniform as an embodied social practice; it brings together a range of essays that explore the social, cultural and political significance of regulatory clothing in various settings. The book traces the expansion of uniform as a mode of self-presentation, focusing on the period from the mid-nineteenth century when this form of clothing became a key motif in public life. The collection draws together a range of perspectives on the topic, from established and emerging scholars in sociology, art and design history, anthropology, fashion history, politics, law and international relations. Uniform is revealed as a technique to both display and obscure the sources of social and political power. From political movements, to religion, leisure, fashion and sports, the book also covers transport, military and school uniforms in various regions. Uniform offers a complex and exciting set of interconnections between militarism and pleasure, democracy and fashion, work and leisure, mobility and power, consumerism and citizenship. What emerges from the collection of essays is a sense that uniform codes are not static and even as uniform styles become meaningful to institutional settings they continually undergo symbolic transformations. As they are manipulated and subverted in art, fashion and popular culture uniform codes remain remarkably resilient and endure in ever more inventive forms into the twenty-first century. The interdisciplinary approach of the book draws attention to the variety of ways in which uniform as a category of dress has enabled distinct forms of social organization in modernity and postmodernity. Cover Half Title Title Copyrights Content List of Illustrations Notes on Contributors Acknowledgments 1 Understanding Uniform: An Introduction Jane Tynan and Lisa Godson Part One: Uniforming Political Movements 2 The Public Order Act: Defining Political Uniform in 1930s Britain Annebella Pollen 3 Revolutionary Culture, Girl Power, and the Red Guard Uniform During the Chinese Cultural Revolution Li Li Part Two: Uniforming Institutions 4 Uniform Adoption in English Public Schools,1830–1930 Kate Stephenson 5 Dissolving Vatican Uniform Hegemony: The Marist Road to Dress Freedom William J. F. Keenan Part Three: Uniforming Leisure 6 Fashionably Rational: The Evolution of Uniformed Leisure in Late Nineteenth-Century Britain Geraldine Biddle-Perry 7 Uniformity in Fashion Practices During the Modernization Period in Turkey F. Dilek Himam Part Four: Uniforming Workers 8 Uniforming the Corporate Body in the City of London Samira Guerra 9 A Cast of Thousands: Martin Grant and the New Qantas Uniform Prudence Black Part Five: Uniforming Fashion 10 Overalls: Functional, Political, Fashionable Djurdja Bartlett 11 Utility Chic: Where Fashion and Uniform Meet Jane Tynan Part Six: Uniforming the Military 12 Military Uniform and Lethal Targeting in International Law on Armed Conflict Amin Parsa 13 Military Uniforms and Women in the Ulster Defence Regiment Stephen Herron Conclusion Notes Select Bibliography Index