This event is co-sponsored by the European Studies, The Department of German, Nordic, and Slavic and the Nordic Studies Graduate Student Colloquium.
Purposeful dressing remains one of the most powerful creative mediums for self-definition. By wearing clothes understood as traditional, one can position the self within a web of social and historical connections.
Through ethnographic case studies of Swedish folkdräkt, Norwegian bunad, and Sámi gákti, this talk explores the healing uses and abuses of traditional dress in everyday discourses and social performances in Scandinavia today, foregrounding the negotiation of emergent inclusions and exclusions in contemporary multicultural societies that are confronting histories of romantic nationalism and settler colonialism.
Carrie Hertz , Curator of Textiles and Dress at the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She holds a PhD in Folklore from Indiana University and her research centers on regional dress practices in Southwest China and Scandinavia.