Theatre Instructor presents at Costume Society of America

Over the last few days in May, Costume Society of America, the nation’s leading academic organization in the field of costume history and fashion studies, held its 48th annual meeting and symposium In Minneapolis. The conference, titled “Land of 10 000 Innovations”, brought together over 70 scholars from a multitude of institutions across the United States and Canada. Research presented covered a variety of topics in the ways dress and fashion figure in cultural anthropology, material studies, education, accessibility, and entertainment. Saint Mary’s Anastasia Goodwin, associate academic faculty and costume designer for the theatre program, presented ongoing research in the session “Answering the call for better teaching: insights from current education literature for the costume classroom”. Goodwin’s research seeks to address ongoing concerns about decolonizing the costume curriculum, providing students with necessary critical thinking and information literacy skills, and giving costume educators the tools they need to update their teaching to include global fashion systems. The response to the session was very positive, showing that this topic is of interest to many educators of all generations.