Getting Located: Queer Semiotics in Dress

Professor Callen Zimmerman, from the Performing and Fine Arts Department presents Getting Located: Queer Semiotics in Dress.

Exploring the social and political quagmire of getting dressed, Callen Zimmerman will examine the discursive practices, nuanced modes, and slight twists that fashion undergoes in the hands of queer folks. Looking at the body as a long-contested site of identity construction, this presentation will explore the ways that fashion has been used to convey desire, build affinity, and transgress norms. Looking at contemporary and historical examples, this research seeks to understand what new modes of expression might look like in the future, and how they resonate with our current political moment.

Callen Zimmerman explores the intricacies of material culture and queer experience, as a fashion freak, educator, and maker. Callen teaches Fashion Studies & Art History at City Tech + York College and is always working on the intersections of radical pedagogy and artistic practices. Having recently graduated from the CUNY Graduate Center’s Liberal Studies MA program, Callen is now pursuing a Ph.D. at Stony Brook University in the Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies Program.