Faculty Profile
Amy Farrell
(she/her/hers)Professor of American Studies and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies; James Hope Caldwell Memorial Chair (1991)
Contact Information
Denny Hall Room 306
Bio
Amy E. Farrell is the Ann and John Curley Chair of Liberal Arts and Professor of American Studies and Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dickinson College. Her research focuses on the history of second wave feminism, representations of gender and feminism in popular culture, and the history and representation of the body and fatness. She is the author of two books: Yours in Sisterhood: Ms. Magazine and the Promise of Popular Feminism (University of North Carolina Press, 1998) and Fat Shame: Stigma and the fat Body in American Culture (New York University Press, 2011). She is currently working on a project on the history of Girl Scouting, race, and democracy.
Education
- B.A., Ohio University, 1985
- M.A., University of Minnesota, 1988
- Ph.D., 1991
Awards
- Dickinson Award for Distinguished Teaching, 2005-06
2023-2024 Academic Year
Fall 2023
WGSS 200 Feminist Pract, Writing & Rsrc
Building upon the key concepts and modes of inquire introduced in the WGSS Introductory course, WGSS 200 deepens students’ understanding of how feminist perspectives on power, experience, and inequality uniquely shape how scholars approach research questions, writing practices, methods and knowledge production. Approaches may include feminist approaches to memoir, oral histories, grassroots and online activism, blogging, visual culture, ethnography, archival research, space, art, literary analysis, and policy studies.Prerequisite: 100 or 208, which can be taken concurrently.
Spring 2024
AMST 200 Fashion & Politics of the Body
Cross-listed with WGSS 202-02.
Note: Part of the Fashioning the Body, Shaping the Nation Mosaic.
Fashion and the Politics of the Body will focus on the historical question of clothing, fashion and adornment in U.S. culture. Who has had the right to wear what? What does this reveal about the hierarchies of class, of race, of gender and the very idealization of the "normal" body? How have different groups of people struggled for the right to wear what they want to wear? We will focus on a variety of historical moments, from the laws structuring what enslaved people could wear, to the Zoot Suit riots, the shop girls' fast fashion, the "ugly laws" that forced disabled people to cover themselves, and the most recent push by fat activists for fashion that not only fits but that goes beyond "minimizing " fatness. We will explore the questions of who gets to wear what, how the history of making the clothes relates to the question of wearing the clothes, and, finally, how all this relates to questions of clothing and adornment in a time of climate crisis.
WGSS 202 Fashion & Politics of the Body
Cross-listed with AMST 200-01. Part of the Fashioning the Body, Shaping the Nation Mosaic.
Fashion and the Politics of the Body will focus on the historical question of clothing, fashion and adornment in U.S. culture. Who has had the right to wear what? What does this reveal about the hierarchies of class, of race, of gender and the very idealization of the "normal" body? How have different groups of people struggled for the right to wear what they want to wear? We will focus on a variety of historical moments, from the laws structuring what enslaved people could wear, to the Zoot Suit riots, the shop girls' fast fashion, the "ugly laws" that forced disabled people to cover themselves, and the most recent push by fat activists for fashion that not only fits but that goes beyond "minimizing " fatness. We will explore the questions of who gets to wear what, how the history of making the clothes relates to the question of wearing the clothes, and, finally, how all this relates to questions of clothing and adornment in a time of climate crisis.
AMST 500 Independent Study
Cross-listed with WGSS 500-01, HIST 500-01, FMST 500-01 and ITAL 500-01. Permission of Instructor Required. Part of the Fashioning the Body, Shaping the Nation Mosaic.
FMST 500 Independent Study
Cross-listed with WGSS 500-01, HIST 500-01, AMST 500-01 and ITAL 500-01. Permission of Instructor Required. Part of the Fashioning the Body, Shaping the Nation Mosaic.
HIST 500 Independent Study
Cross-listed with WGSS 500-01, FMST 500-01, AMST 500-01 and ITAL 500-01. Permission of Instructor Required. Part of the Fashioning the Body, Shaping the Nation Mosaic.
ITAL 500 Independent Study
Cross-listed with WGSS 500-01, HIST 500-01, AMST 500-01 and FMST 500-01. Permission of Instructor Required. Part of the Fashioning the Body, Shaping the Nation Mosaic.
WGSS 500 WGSS Independent Study
Cross-listed with AMST 500-01, HIST 500-01, FMST 500-01 and ITAL 500-01. Permission of Instructor Required. Part of the Fashioning the Body, Shaping the Nation Mosaic.