Fashion + Beauty
This page features a small selection of UConn library and external resources to support learning and research pertaining to Fashion & Beauty. This list is meant to be exploratory and is not a comprehensive representation or list of the library's holdings.
For additional assistance, please contact Stephanie Birch, Research Services Librarian for Africana Studies at stephanie.birch@uconn.edu.
Black Hair & Beauty - Culture & Politics
Beauty by Design: the aesthetics of African adornment by Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780891923893Publication Date: 1984-01-01
Hair in African Art and Culture by
This lavishly illustrated volume explores the many styles and social meanings of African hair syles.
Call Number: NE962.H3 A34 2000ISBN: 3791322915Publication Date: 2000-03-01
Hair Raising: beauty, culture, and African American women by
In this book, the author explores the history and politics of hair and beauty culture in African American communities from the nineteenth century to the 1990s.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 0585098271Publication Date: 1996-01-01
Hair Matters: beauty, power, and Black women's consciousness by
Substantive, ethnographically informed research on the politics of Black hair Drawing on interviews with over 50 women, from teens to seniors, Hair Matters is the first book on the politics of Black hair to be based on substantive, ethnographically informed research. Focusing on the everyday discussions that Black women have among themselves and about themselves, Ingrid Banks analyzes how talking about hair reveals Black women's ideas about race, gender, sexuality, beauty, and power. Ultimately, what emerges is a survey of Black women's consciousness within both their own communities and mainstream culture at large.
Call Number: E185.86 .B265 2000ISBN: 0814713378Publication Date: 2000-10-01
HairStories by
Explores the history, style, and meaning of black hair as seen through the eyes of three generations of major African American artists HairStories explores the history, style, and meaning of black hair as seen through the eyes of three generations of major African American artists. Showcasing more than 60 works by 27 artists, it spans nearly a century of visual art, pop culture, music, and literature, considering hair as a reflection of history, identity, and race relations in America, from the days of segregation to today.
Call Number: N8217.H27 H3 2003ISBN: 0967026547Publication Date: 2004-02-01
Hope in a Jar: the making of America's beauty culture by
How did powder and paint, once scorned as immoral, become indispensable to millions of respectable women? How did a "kitchen physic," as homemade cosmetics were once called, become a multibillion-dollar industry? And how did men finally take over that rarest of institutions, a woman's business? In Hope in a Jar, historian Kathy Peiss gives us the first full-scale social history of America's beauty culture, from the buttermilk and rice powder recommended by Victorian recipe books to the mass-produced products of our contemporary consumer age. She shows how women, far from being pawns and victims, used makeup to declare their freedom, identity, and sexual allure as they flocked to enter public life. And she highlights the leading role of white and black women--Helena Rubenstein and Annie Turnbo Malone, Elizabeth Arden and Madame C. J. Walker--in shaping a unique industry that relied less on advertising than on women's customs of visiting and conversation. Replete with the voices and experiences of ordinary women, Hope in a Jar is a richly textured account of the ways women created the cosmetics industry and cosmetics created the modern woman.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780812205749Publication Date: 2011-11-29
From the Kitchen to the Parlor: language and becoming in African American women's hair care by
Documenting the politics of African American women's hair, this multi-sited linguistic ethnography explores everyday interaction in beauty parlours, Internet discussions, comedy clubs and other contexts to illuminate how and why hair matters in African American women's day-to-day experiences.
Call Number: Print & eBookISBN: 9781429403009Publication Date: 2006-01-01
Style and Status: selling beauty to African American women, 1920-1975 by
Between the 1920s and the 1970s, American economic culture began to emphasize the value of consumption over production. At the same time, the rise of new mass media such as radio and television facilitated the advertising and sales of consumer goods on an unprecedented scale. In Style and Status: Selling Beauty to African American Women, 1920-1975, Susannah Walker analyzes an often-overlooked facet of twentieth-century consumer society as she explores the political, social, and racial implications of the business devoted to producing and marketing beauty products for African American women. Walker examines African American beauty culture as a significant component of twentieth-century consumerism, and she links both subjects to the complex racial politics of the era. The efforts of black entrepreneurs to participate in the American economy and to achieve self-determination of black beauty standards often caused conflict within the African American community. Additionally, a prevalence of white-owned firms in the African American beauty industry sparked widespread resentment, even among advocates of full integration in other areas of the American economy and culture. Concerned African Americans argued that whites had too much influence over black beauty culture and were invading the market, complicating matters of physical appearance with questions of race and power. Based on a wide variety of documentary and archival evidence, Walker concludes that African American beauty standards were shaped within black society as much as they were formed in reaction to, let alone imposed by, the majority culture. Style and Status challenges the notion that the civil rights and black power movements of the 1950s through the 1970s represents the first period in which African Americans wielded considerable influence over standards of appearance and beauty. Walker explores how beauty culture affected black women's racial and feminine identities, the role of black-owned businesses in African American communities, differences between black-owned and white-owned manufacturers of beauty products, and the concept of racial progress in the post-World War II era. Through the story of the development of black beauty culture, Walker examines the interplay of race, class, and gender in twentieth-century America.
Call Number: Print & eBookISBN: 9780813124339Publication Date: 2007-02-23
Twisted: the tangled history of Black hair culture by
A Kirkus Best Book of the Year Stamped from the Beginning meets You Can't Touch My Hair in this timely and resonant essay collection from Guardian contributor and prominent BBC race correspondent Emma Dabiri, exploring the ways in which black hair has been appropriated and stigmatized throughout history, with ruminations on body politics, race, pop culture, and Dabiri's own journey to loving her hair. Emma Dabiri can tell you the first time she chemically straightened her hair. She can describe the smell, the atmosphere of the salon, and her mix of emotions when she saw her normally kinky tresses fall down her shoulders. For as long as Emma can remember, her hair has been a source of insecurity, shame, and--from strangers and family alike--discrimination. And she is not alone. Despite increasingly liberal world views, black hair continues to be erased, appropriated, and stigmatized to the point of taboo. Through her personal and historical journey, Dabiri gleans insights into the way racism is coded in society's perception of black hair--and how it is often used as an avenue for discrimination. Dabiri takes us from pre-colonial Africa, through the Harlem Renaissance, and into today's Natural Hair Movement, exploring everything from women's solidarity and friendship, to the criminalization of dreadlocks, to the dubious provenance of Kim Kardashian's braids. Through the lens of hair texture, Dabiri leads us on a historical and cultural investigation of the global history of racism--and her own personal journey of self-love and finally, acceptance. Deeply researched and powerfully resonant, Twisted proves that far from being only hair, black hairstyling culture can be understood as an allegory for black oppression and, ultimately, liberation.
Call Number: GT2290 .D33 2020ISBN: 0062966723Publication Date: 2020-06-23
Body Positivity Movement
Bad Fat Black Girl: notes from a trap feminist by
"Sesali Bowen is poised to give Black feminism the rejuvenation it needs. Her trendsetting writing and commentary reaches across experiences and beyond respectability. I and so many Black girls still figuring out who they are in this world will gain so much from whatever she has to say."--Charlene A. Carruthers, activist and author of Unapologetic: A Black, Queer and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements "Sesali perfectly vocalizes the inner dialogue, and daily mantras needed to be a Bad Bitch."--Gabourey Sidibe, actor, director, and author of This is Just My Face: Try Not To Stare "A powerful call for a more inclusive and 'real' feminism."--Publishers Weekly (starred review) "Bowen writes from an authentic space for Black women who are often left out of feminist conversations due to respectability politics, but who are just as deserving of the same voice and liberation."--Booklist (starred review) From funny and fearless entertainment journalist Sesali Bowen, Bad Fat Black Girl combines rule-breaking feminist theory, witty and insightful personal memoir, and cutting cultural analysis for an unforgettable, genre-defining debut. Growing up on the south side of Chicago, Sesali Bowen learned early on how to hustle, stay on her toes, and champion other Black women and femmes as she navigated Blackness, queerness, fatness, friendship, poverty, sex work, and self-love. Her love of trap music led her to the top of hip-hop journalism, profiling game-changing artists like Megan Thee Stallion, Lizzo, and Janelle Monae. But despite all the beauty, complexity, and general badassery she saw, Bowen found none of that nuance represented in mainstream feminism. Thus, she coined Trap Feminism, a contemporary framework that interrogates where feminism meets today's hip-hop. Bad Fat Black Girl offers a new, inclusive feminism for the modern world. Weaving together searing personal essay and cultural commentary, Bowen interrogates sexism, fatphobia, and capitalism all within the context of race and hip-hop. In the process, she continues a Black feminist legacy of unmatched sheer determination and creative resilience. Bad bitches: this one's for you.
Call Number: Special Collections CLC A18080ISBN: 9780063028708Publication Date: 2021-10-05
Belly of the Beast: the politics of anti-fatness as anti-Blackness by
**The 2022 Lammy Award Winner in Transgender Nonfiction** Exploring the intersections of Blackness, gender, fatness, health, and the violence of policing. To live in a body both fat and Black is to exist at the margins of a society that creates the conditions for anti-fatness as anti-Blackness. Hyper-policed by state and society, passed over for housing and jobs, and derided and misdiagnosed by medical professionals, fat Black people in the United States are subject to sociopolitically sanctioned discrimination, abuse, condescension, and trauma. Da'Shaun Harrison--a fat, Black, disabled, and nonbinary trans writer--offers an incisive, fresh, and precise exploration of anti-fatness as anti-Blackness, foregrounding the state-sanctioned murders of fat Black men and trans and nonbinary masculine people in historical analysis. Policing, disenfranchisement, and invisibilizing of fat Black men and trans and nonbinary masculine people are pervasive, insidious ways that anti-fat anti-Blackness shows up in everyday life. Fat people can be legally fired in 49 states for being fat; they're more likely to be houseless. Fat people die at higher rates from misdiagnosis or nontreatment; fat women are more likely to be sexually assaulted. And at the intersections of fatness, Blackness, disability, and gender, these abuses are exacerbated. Taking on desirability politics, the limitations of gender, the connection between anti-fatness and carcerality, and the incongruity of "health" and "healthiness" for the Black fat, Harrison viscerally and vividly illustrates the myriad harms of anti-fat anti-Blackness. They offer strategies for dismantling denial, unlearning the cultural programming that tells us "fat is bad," and destroying the world as we know it, so the Black fat can inhabit a place not built on their subjugation.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781623175986Publication Date: 2021-08-10
Fat girls in black bodies : creating communities of our own by
Combatting fatphobia and racism to reclaim a space of belonging at the intersection of fat, Black, and female. To live in a body at the intersection of fat, Black, and female is to be on the margins. From concern-trolling--"I just want you to be healthy"--To outright attacks, fat Black bodies that fall outside dominant constructs of beauty and wellness are subjected to healthism, racism, and misogynoir. The spaces carved out by third-wave feminism and the fat liberation movement fail at true inclusivity and intersectionality; fat Black women need to create their own safe spaces and community, instead of tirelessly giving labor to educate, chastise, and strive against dominant groups. Structured into three sections--"belonging," "resistance," and "acceptance"--and informed by personal history, community stories, and deep research, Fat Girls in Black Bodies breaks down the myths, stereotypes, tropes, and outright lies we've been sold about race, body size, belonging, and health. Cox's razor-sharp cultural commentary exposes the racist roots of diet culture, healthism, and the ways we erroneously conflate body size with personal responsibility. She explores how to reclaim space and create belonging in a hostile world, pushing back against tired pressures of "going along just to get along," and dismantles the institutionally ingrained myths about race, size, gender, and worth that deny fat Black women their selfhood
Call Number: eBookISBN: 1623175003Publication Date: 2020
Recovering the Black Female Body: self-representations by African American women by
Despite the recent flood of scholarly work investigating the interrelated issues of race, gender, and representation, little has been written about black women's depictions of their own bodies. Both past and present-day American cultural discourse has attempted either to hypereroticize the black female body or make it a site of impropriety and crime. The essays in this volume focus on how African American women, from the nineteenth century to the present, have represented their physical selves in opposition to the distorted vision of others. Contributors attempt to "recover" the black female body in two ways: they explore how dominant historical images have mediated black female identity, and they analyze how black women have resisted often demeaning popular cultural perceptions in favor of more diverse, subtle presentations of self. The pieces in this book--all of them published here for the first time--address a wide range of topics, from antebellum American poetry to nineteenth-century African American actors, and twentieth-century pulp fiction. Recovering the Black Female Body recognizes the pressing need to highlight through scholarship the vibrant energy of African American women's attempts to wrest control of the physical and symbolic construction of their bodies away from the distortions of others. Contributors are Margaret Bass, Dorri Rabung Beam, Michael Bennett, Jacqueline E. Brady, Daphne A. Brooks, Vanessa D. Dickerson, Meredith Goldsmith, Yvette Louis, Ajuan Maria Mance, Noliwe Rooks, Mark Winokur, and Doris Witt. This book also contains a foreword by Carla L. Peterson and an afterword by Deborah E. McDowell.
Call Number: E185.86 .R37 2001ISBN: 0813528380Publication Date: 2000-12-01
The Self-Love Revolution: Radical Body Positivity for Girls of Color by
"A terrific resource that shows readers how to start feeling good about their body and rewire their sense of self-worth." --School Library Journal starred review It's time to ditch harmful, outdated beauty standards and build real, lasting body positivity. It's time for a self-love revolution! Every day we see movies, magazines, and social media that make us feel like we need to change how we look. This takes a toll on how we think about ourselves--and how we allow others to treat us. And while many teens feel shame about their body, being a teen girl of color can be hard in unique ways. Maybe you feel alienated by the mainstream image of beauty, which is still thin, white and able-bodied. In addition to that, you may also feel pressure from within your community to measure up to a different--but equally unfair--beauty standard. So, how can you start feeling good about yourself when you're surrounded by these unrealistic--and problematic--ideas about your body? In The Self-Love Revolution, leading body image expert and creator of #LoseHateNotWeight Virgie Tovar offers an unapologetic guide to help you question popular culture and cultivate radical body positivity. With this groundbreaking book, you'll identify and challenge mainstream beliefs about beauty; understand the unique tools girls of color have to counter negative body image; and build real, lasting body empowerment. You'll also learn how to call out diet culture, and discover ways to move beyond your own inner critic and start building the unconditional love for yourself that you deserve. It's time to explode society's beauty standards, stop messing with diets, wear what you want, and recognize that your body is your business. This book will help you find your way to radical body positivity, one step at a time.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781684034123Publication Date: 2020-05-01
Unashamed : musings of a fat, black Muslim by
"Ever since she was little, Leah Vernon was told what to believe and how to act. There wasn't any room for imperfection. Good Muslim girls listened more than they spoke. They didn't have a missing father or a mother with mental illness. They didn't have fat bodies or grow up wishing they could be like the white characters they saw on TV. They didn't have husbands who abused and cheated on them. They certainly didn't have secret abortions. In Unashamed, Vernon takes to task the myth of the perfect Muslim woman with frank dispatches on her love-hate relationship with her hijab and her faith, race, weight, mental illness, domestic violence, sexuality, the millennial world of dating, and the process of finding her voice. She opens up about her tumultuous adolescence living at the poverty line with her fiercely loving but troubled mother, her deadbeat dad, and her siblings, and the violent dissolution of her 10-year marriage. Tired of the constant policing of her clothing in the name of Islam and Western beauty standards, Vernon reflects on her experiences with hustling paycheck to paycheck, body-shaming, and redefining what it means to be a "good" Muslim"-- Provided by publisher.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9780807012635Publication Date: 2019
Black Style - Culture & Politics
Coming soon!
Clothing and Difference: embodied identities in colonial and post-colonial Africa by
This volume examines the dynamic relationship between the body, clothing, and identity in sub-Saharan Africa and raises questions that have previously been directed almost exclusively to a Western and urban context. Unusual in its treatment of the body surface as a critical frontier in the production and authentification of identity, Clothing and Difference shows how the body and its adornment have been used to construct and contest social and individual identities in Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Kenya, and other African societies during both colonial and post-colonial times. Grounded in the insights of anthropology and history and influenced by developments in cultural studies, these essays investigate the relations between the personal and the public, and between ideas about the self and those about the family, gender, and national groups. They explore the bodily and material creation of the changing identities of women, spirits, youths, ancestors, and entrepreneurs through a consideration of topics such as fashion, spirit possession, commodity exchange, hygiene, and mourning. By taking African societies as its focus, Clothing and Difference demonstrates that factors considered integral to Western social development--heterogeneity, migration, urbanization, transnational exchange, and media representation--have existed elsewhere in different configurations and with different outcomes. With significance for a wide range of fields, including gender studies, cultural studies, art history, performance studies, political science, semiotics, economics, folklore, and fashion and textile analysis/design, this work provides alternative views of the structures underpinning Western systems of commodification, postmodernism, and cultural differentiation. Contributors. Misty Bastian, Timothy Burke, Hildi Hendrickson, Deborah James, Adeline Masquelier, Elisha Renne, Johanna Schoss, Brad Weiss
Call Number: GT1580 .C56 1996ISBN: 9780822396376Publication Date: 1996-06-10
Liberated Threads: Black women, style, and the global politics of soul by
From the civil rights and Black Power era of the 1960s through antiapartheid activism in the 1980s and beyond, black women have used their clothing, hair, and style not simply as a fashion statement but as a powerful tool of resistance. Whether using stiletto heels as weapons to protect against police attacks or incorporating African-themed designs into everyday wear, these fashion-forward women celebrated their identities and pushed for equality. In this thought-provoking book, Tanisha C. Ford explores how and why black women in places as far-flung as New York City, Atlanta, London, and Johannesburg incorporated style and beauty culture into their activism. Focusing on the emergence of the "soul style" movement--represented in clothing, jewelry, hairstyles, and more--Liberated Threads shows that black women's fashion choices became galvanizing symbols of gender and political liberation. Drawing from an eclectic archive, Ford offers a new way of studying how black style and Soul Power moved beyond national boundaries, sparking a global fashion phenomenon. Following celebrities, models, college students, and everyday women as they moved through fashion boutiques, beauty salons, and record stores, Ford narrates the fascinating intertwining histories of Black Freedom and fashion.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 9781469625164Publication Date: 2015-09-14
'New Raiments of Self': African American clothing in the antebellum South by
This book examines the clothing worn by African Americans in the southern United States during the thirty years before the American Civil War. Drawing on a wide range of sources, most notably oral narratives recorded in the 1930s, this rich account shows that African Americans demonstrated a thorough knowledge of the role clothing played in demarcating age, sex, status, work, recreation, as well as special secular and sacred events. Testimonies offer proof of African Americans' vast technical skills in producing cloth and clothing, which served both as a fundamental reflection of the peoples' Afrocentric craftsmanship and aesthetic sensibilities, and as a reaction to their particular place in American society. Previous work on clothing in this period has tended to focus on white viewpoints, and as a consequence the dress worn by the enslaved has generally been seen as a static standard imposed by white overlords. This excellent study departs from conventional interpretations to show that the clothing of the enslaved changed over time, served multiple functions and represented customs and attitudes which evolved distinctly from within African American communities. In short, it represents a vital contribution to African American studies, as well as to dress and textile history, and cultural and folklore studies.
Call Number: GT617.S68 F67 1997ISBN: 9781859731840Publication Date: 1997-06-01
Slaves to Fashion: Black dandyism and the styling of black diasporic identity by
Slaves to Fashion is a pioneering cultural history of the black dandy, from his emergence in Enlightenment England to his contemporary incarnations in the cosmopolitan art worlds of London and New York. It is populated by sartorial impresarios such as Julius Soubise, a freed slave who sometimes wore diamond-buckled, red-heeled shoes as he circulated through the social scene of eighteenth-century London, and Yinka Shonibare, a prominent Afro-British artist who not only styles himself as a fop but also creates ironic commentaries on black dandyism in his work. Interpreting performances and representations of black dandyism in particular cultural settings and literary and visual texts, Monica L. Miller emphasizes the importance of sartorial style to black identity formation in the Atlantic diaspora. Dandyism was initially imposed on black men in eighteenth-century England, as the Atlantic slave trade and an emerging culture of conspicuous consumption generated a vogue in dandified black servants. "Luxury slaves" tweaked and reworked their uniforms, and were soon known for their sartorial novelty and sometimes flamboyant personalities. Tracing the history of the black dandy forward to contemporary celebrity incarnations such as Andre 3000 and Sean Combs, Miller explains how black people became arbiters of style and how they have historically used the dandy's signature tools--clothing, gesture, and wit--to break down limiting identity markers and propose new ways of fashioning political and social possibility in the black Atlantic world. With an aplomb worthy of her iconographic subject, she considers the black dandy in relation to nineteenth-century American literature and drama, W. E. B. Du Bois's reflections on black masculinity and cultural nationalism, the modernist aesthetics of the Harlem Renaissance, and representations of black cosmopolitanism in contemporary visual art.
Call Number: E185.89.F37 M55 2009ISBN: 9780822345855Publication Date: 2009-10-08
Stylin': African American expressive culture from its beginnings to the zoot suit by
For over two centuries, in the North as well as the South, both within their own community and in the public arena, African Americans have presented their bodies in culturally distinctive ways. Shane White and Graham White consider the deeper significance of the ways in which African Americans have dressed, walked, danced, arranged their hair, and communicated in silent gestures. They ask what elaborate hair styles, bright colors, bandanas, long watch chains, and zoot suits, for example, have really meant, and discuss style itself as an expression of deep-seated cultural imperatives. Their wide-ranging exploration of black style from its African origins to the 1940s reveals a culture that differed from that of the dominant racial group in ways that were often subtle and elusive. A wealth of black-and-white illustrations show the range of African American experience in America, emanating from all parts of the country, from cities and farms, from slave plantations, and Chicago beauty contests. White and White argue that the politics of black style is, in fact, the politics of metaphor, always ambiguous because it is always indirect. To tease out these ambiguities, they examine extensive sources, including advertisements for runaway slaves, interviews recorded with surviving ex-slaves in the 1930s, autobiographies, travelers' accounts, photographs, paintings, prints, newspapers, and images drawn from popular culture, such as the stereotypes of Jim Crow and Zip Coon.
Call Number: E185.86 .W4388 1998ISBN: 0801431794Publication Date: 1998-02-26
Wrapped in Pride: Ghanaian kente and African American identity by
Kente is not only the best known of all African textiles, it is also one of the most admired of all fabrics worldwide. Originating among the Asante peoples of Ghana and the Ewe peoples of Ghana and Togo, this brilliantly colored and intricately patterned strip-woven cloth was traditionally associated with royalty. Over time, however, it has come to be worn and used in many different contexts. In Wrapped in Pride, seven distinguished scholars present an exhaustive examination of the history of kente from its earliest use in Ghana to its present-day impact in the African Diaspora.
Call Number: NK8989.6.G5 R67 1998ISBN: 9780930741686Publication Date: 1998-11-01
Colorism
- Colorism and African American Wealth: Evidence from the Nineteenth-Century South by Call Number: eBookPublication Date: 2005
The color complex : the politics of skin color in a new millennium by
A courageous, humane, and provocative examination of how differences in color and features among African Americans have played and continue to play a role in their professional lives, friendships, romances, and families.
Call Number: eBookISBN: 0307744248Publication Date: 2012
Beneath the Surface: a transnational history of skin lighteners by
For more than a century, skin lighteners have been a ubiquitous feature of global popular culture--embraced by consumers even as they were fiercely opposed by medical professionals, consumer health advocates, and antiracist thinkers and activists. In Beneath the Surface, Lynn M. Thomas constructs a transnational history of skin lighteners in South Africa and beyond. Analyzing a wide range of archival, popular culture, and oral history sources, Thomas traces the changing meanings of skin color from precolonial times to the postcolonial present. From indigenous skin-brightening practices and the rapid spread of lighteners in South African consumer culture during the 1940s and 1950s to the growth of a billion-dollar global lightener industry, Thomas shows how the use of skin lighteners and experiences of skin color have been shaped by slavery, colonialism, and segregation as well as by consumer capitalism, visual media, notions of beauty, and protest politics. In teasing out lighteners' layered history, Thomas theorizes skin as a site for antiracist struggle and lighteners as a technology of visibility that both challenges and entrenches racial and gender hierarchies.
Call Number: eBooksISBN: 1478007052Publication Date: 2020-01-10
Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone by
Race, Gender, and the Politics of Skin Tone tackles the hidden yet painful issue of colorism in the African American and Mexican American communities. Beginning with a historical discussion of slavery and colonization in the Americas, the book quickly moves forward to a contemporary analysis of how skin tone continues to plague people of color today. This is the first book to explore this well-known, yet rarely discussed phenomenon.
Call Number: E185.625 .H865 2005ISBN: 0415946077Publication Date: 2005-06-23
Shades of Difference: why skin color matters by
Shades of Difference addresses the widespread but little studied phenomenon of colorism--the preference for lighter skin and the ranking of individual worth according to skin tone. Examining the social and cultural significance of skin color in a broad range of societies and historical periods, this insightful collection looks at how skin color affects people's opportunities in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and North America. Is skin color bias distinct from racial bias? How does skin color preference relate to gender, given the association of lightness with desirability and beauty in women? The authors of this volume explore these and other questions as they take a closer look at the role Western-dominated culture and media have played in disseminating the ideal of light skin globally. With its comparative, international focus, this enlightening book will provide innovative insights and expand the dialogue around race and gender in the social sciences, ethnic studies, African American studies, and gender and women's studies.
Call Number: GN197 .S524 2009ISBN: 9780804759984Publication Date: 2009-01-23
Online Resources
Black Beauty Archives | Created in 2020, this digital project gathers rare vintage beauty ads, magazines, press photos, cosmetics, wigs, and beauty tools pertaining to Black beauty experiences and aesthetics.
Fashioning Self | A project exploring the intersection between fashion and slavery, as enslaved people were denied many forms of self-expression but who contributed to the fashion industry through forced, unpaid labor. Includes original content, articles, archival images, and videos with explanatory captions.
Madame CJ Walker Collection | A digital archival collection containing the personal and business papers of Madam CJ Walker, A'Lelia Walker, Freeman B. Ransom, and others who worked for the company, as well as records relating to operations and the beauty schools, against, and other businesses connected to the Walker Building in Indianapolis, Indiana.
