*Special note: As stated in my Christmas post, these four posts on the ontology of clothes are likely not every reader’s cup of tea. They are one essay and pretty dense. Usually, writings I post are meant to be intellectual but accessible. I hope they are! However, this essay was written for academics and will…
This understanding of vanity is peculiar and, I believe, problematic, but Leahy thinks it mistakes the nature of what sovereignty targets: in Agamben, the body liberated from modern politics is potency no longer forced to act; but for Leahy the body is never reserved (209; Foundation, 577), for “the body itself, the infinite surface,” (189)…
Agamben follows French historian and theorist, Michel Foucault, in thinking of politics in terms of biopower. This is why the dispute between Leahy and Agamben about sovereignty is a matter of the body. And now also the connection with vanity and clothes becomes clearer: adornment means fashion clothes our biology. What precisely is the connection…
In Ecstatic Morality I show that John Paul II’s theology of the body relies on a high Christology, Christ, an offering metaphysical, the very order of Natural Law. Leahy’s is also a Christological metaphysics: “the beginning of the body, of society, of the new humanity conceived essentially, i.e., conceived qua historical actuality as the Artifactual…
My recent posts on Under Amour try to explain why companies have an obligation to fix production in their local communities. Localism is a moral claim relevant to discussions of business organization and strategy, as well as debates about trade, globalism, and offshoring. Chapters 3 and 7 of V&R are critical of Fast Fashion…
2016 will close with a scary gift to readers. I am just finishing a long essay on the metaphysics of clothes. Once finished, I will serialize it as three or four posts due to its size. It is an academic article that will appear in a collection of essays to honour the thinking of D.…
This semester a Loyola communication class has been working on how to advertise V&R. The professor of the class, Dr. Paola Pascual-Ferra, thinks it an interesting marketing problem: How to advertise a book published exclusively as a website? I meet the class next week to listen to their ideas. I’m excited! Here are some questions…
This post continues an earlier one on a talk by the CEO of Under Armour (http://www.ethicsoffashion.com/armour-morally-responsible-company/). Affirming the company’s moral standing, Kevin Plank argues that Under Armour provides thousands of jobs for the poor overseas and with a major redevelopment of underused land in Baltimore City for flats, housing, and restaurants also gives back to…
http://www.libertylawsite.org/2016/11/28/beauty-and-the-beast/
It’s likely true that most of us lack self-awareness, and especially when it comes to fashion. By this I don’t only mean that most of us are poor at really isolating what clothes, looks, and fit suit us best, but rather more that few of us are aware of how fashion functions despite its being…