RYAN STANDER
  • Home
  • Artist Statement
  • Photography
    • Collodion
    • Florence
    • Bakken
    • Instagram
      • 2018
      • 2017
      • 2016
      • 2015
      • 2014
      • Earlier
    • Elevator Series
    • Topos/Chora
      • About Topos/Chora & PKAP
    • Alternative Processes
      • Cyprus Van Dykes
      • On Wood
      • Cyanotype Landscapes
    • Building Series
  • Printmaking
    • Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid
    • Visual Analogues
    • American Ideals
    • Contested Spaces
    • The Substance of Things Seen
  • Mixed Media
    • Book Arts
      • Photobooks
      • Photograph Album Vols. 1 & 2
      • MFA Books
    • Archival Turn Work
    • Archival Turn Statement
    • Archival Turn Reception
  • Store
  • Bio
  • Contact
  • Links & Resources
  • Teaching
    • Art 280: Photography I
    • Art 380: Advanced Photography
    • Art 491: Art Seminar
    • Art 492: Capstone
    • MSU Art Department Writing Style Guide
  • Student Work
  • Home
  • Artist Statement
  • Photography
    • Collodion
    • Florence
    • Bakken
    • Instagram
      • 2018
      • 2017
      • 2016
      • 2015
      • 2014
      • Earlier
    • Elevator Series
    • Topos/Chora
      • About Topos/Chora & PKAP
    • Alternative Processes
      • Cyprus Van Dykes
      • On Wood
      • Cyanotype Landscapes
    • Building Series
  • Printmaking
    • Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid
    • Visual Analogues
    • American Ideals
    • Contested Spaces
    • The Substance of Things Seen
  • Mixed Media
    • Book Arts
      • Photobooks
      • Photograph Album Vols. 1 & 2
      • MFA Books
    • Archival Turn Work
    • Archival Turn Statement
    • Archival Turn Reception
  • Store
  • Bio
  • Contact
  • Links & Resources
  • Teaching
    • Art 280: Photography I
    • Art 380: Advanced Photography
    • Art 491: Art Seminar
    • Art 492: Capstone
    • MSU Art Department Writing Style Guide
  • Student Work
Search

A Theology of Fashion?

12/4/2012

0 Comments

 
A theology of fashion?  Why bother with such a trivial subject you ask?  

Perhaps its not all that trivial.  
Perhaps, if your response is similar to the one above, we do well to consider why it is seen as trivial.

During my trip down to Iowa in October to speak at Dordt's Christian Evasion of Popular Culture conference, I bumped into Bob Covolo who is doing work at Fuller Seminary on the topic of fashion.  Unfortunately I was so exhausted after my paper I did not have an opportunity to hear his paper.  After reading an article someone posted on the new black dandies in higher education, I decided to look Bob up on the interwebs and found this great article on Cardus.

Bob's article surveys a variety of approaches toward fashion and encourages the church to engage in thicker readings and engagements with fashion.  

Fashion has always been a sort of guilty pleasure for me. As an artist, clothing has always been another form of expression for me, but has always been subverted by the typical sorts of critiques that Bob alludes to coming from the church.  I suspect that fashion, like the visuals arts, are often seen as trivial, and utilitarian in nature (one for covering the body, the other for Evangelism). 

I think Bob is on track with the breadth of questions that fashion raises for church.  But, I keep coming back to...what seems to me is a avoidance and escapist sense of materiality (including the human body itself).  Perhaps its just remnants of my own Dordt paper coming out, but the whole Gnostic escapism thing really could resonate with why the church devalues things like fashion and the arts....they are fleeting, of this world, and distract us from our spiritual duties, until we can leave this place behind.  If we dont take bodies seriously, how much less of an emphasis do we place on those things we put on our bodies and around us in our homes and such?  But that being said, there are resonances (at least in my mind) between our fields.  However, I suspect that Bob is up against even tougher critics that rely upon biblical prooftexting 








0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Ryan Stander

    Archives

    January 2018
    November 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    October 2016
    May 2016
    July 2015
    June 2015
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    October 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    April 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    November 2010
    January 2009
    May 2008
    April 2008
    October 2007
    September 2007
    August 2007

    Categories

    All
    Advertising
    Archaeology
    Architecture
    Archival Turn
    Art
    Artists
    Biblical Study
    Book Arts
    Book Reviews
    Books
    Cabinet Cards
    Canada
    Conferences
    Creativity
    Education
    Ethics
    Evangelicalism
    Exhibitions
    Exhibits
    Favorites
    Film
    Grad School
    History
    Individualism
    Iowa
    Lament
    Landscape
    Liturgy
    Memory
    Mfa
    Mourning Photography
    Music
    New Topographics
    North Dakota
    Oil
    Openings
    P.c.n.j.
    Photographic Objects
    Photography
    Photography History
    Pkap
    Place
    Print Exchanges
    Printmaking
    Psalms
    Randomness
    Student Work
    Sundog Multiples
    Teaching
    Theologizing
    Theology And The Arts
    Tintypes
    Tradition
    Und
    Vernacular Photography
    Visiting Artists
    Vocation

    View my profile on LinkedIn

    RSS Feed

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.
  • Home
  • Artist Statement
  • Photography
    • Collodion
    • Florence
    • Bakken
    • Instagram
      • 2018
      • 2017
      • 2016
      • 2015
      • 2014
      • Earlier
    • Elevator Series
    • Topos/Chora
      • About Topos/Chora & PKAP
    • Alternative Processes
      • Cyprus Van Dykes
      • On Wood
      • Cyanotype Landscapes
    • Building Series
  • Printmaking
    • Hints, Allegations, and Things Left Unsaid
    • Visual Analogues
    • American Ideals
    • Contested Spaces
    • The Substance of Things Seen
  • Mixed Media
    • Book Arts
      • Photobooks
      • Photograph Album Vols. 1 & 2
      • MFA Books
    • Archival Turn Work
    • Archival Turn Statement
    • Archival Turn Reception
  • Store
  • Bio
  • Contact
  • Links & Resources
  • Teaching
    • Art 280: Photography I
    • Art 380: Advanced Photography
    • Art 491: Art Seminar
    • Art 492: Capstone
    • MSU Art Department Writing Style Guide
  • Student Work