ASCA X CAFP book launch event for the second edition of Thinking Through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists, edited by Agnès Rocamora and Anneke Smelik. The hybrid event will take place on Friday, 14 November 2025, from 3 - 4:30 PM (followed by an informal reception). We invite you to save the date and join us for what promises to be a stimulating discussion.

UB D2.08 (Ruyszaal), University Library, Vendelstraat 2-8, 1012 XX Amsterdam, Netherlands

Registration:

https://www.chinaafricafashionpower.org/event-details/thinking-through-fashion-book-launch

The e-books are already available at the UvA library: https://pid.uba.uva.nl/ark:/88238/b19943144431605131

Event Structure

Introduction by dr. Tommy Tse 

Editors’ Presentation (20 min): Prof. Agnès Rocamora and Prof. Anneke Smelik will discuss the goals of their new book, as well as key trends and debates in theorizing fashion.

Panel Discussion (30 min): A dialogue with invited scholars, including dr. Roberto Filippello, dr. Diego Semerene and Jane Tylan, and more, to share further insights

Student Engagement (15–20 min): UvA students from fashion-related programs are invited to ask related theoretical questions

Open Q&A

Reception

About the Book

Across 19 major thinkers from the 19th to the 21st century, the second edition of this comprehensive collection introduces readers to the process of thinking through rich cultural fields such as fashion with the help of social and cultural theory, and thinking through social and cultural theory with the help of fashion. Each chapter guides you through the work of a major thinker and considers their historical context, the role of fashion within their theory, how their theoretical frameworks apply to contemporary fashion studies, and the strengths and limitations of their approach.

https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/thinking-through-fashion-9781350376519/

More details will circulate in the coming month. For those interested in participating in the panel discussion, please contact Tommy Tse (h.l.t.tse@uva.nl) or follow CAFP on Instagram (@chinaafricafashionpower).

About the editors and panelists:

Prof. Agnès Rocamora is a Professor in Social and Cultural Studies at the London College of Fashion, University of the Arts London. She is the author of Fashioning the City: Paris, Fashion and the Media. Her writing on the field of fashion and on the fashion media has appeared in various journals, including Fashion Theory, Journalism Practice, Sociology, Sociétés, and the Journal of Consumer Culture. She is a co-editor of Thinking Through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists, of The Handbook of Fashion Studies, and of Fashion Media: Past and Present, and a contributor to many edited collections including Fashion as Photograph, Critical Luxury Studies, The End of Fashion, Contemporary Challenges in Mediatisation Research, and Fashioning Professionals. She is also a co-founder of the International Journal of Fashion Studies.

Anneke Smelik is Professor Emerita of Visual Culture at the Radboud University Nijmegen, where she was coordinator of the MA programme ‘Creative Industries’. Her current research in fashion focuses on new materialism, posthumanism, technology and sustainability. She published widely in the field fashion, cinema, digital art, and popular culture. Recent publications are a special issue on ‘Fashion’s Fibres as Planetary Flows’ for Fashion Highlight Journal; ‘The cultural history of polyester’ in Fashion Practice; and ‘Fractal Folds: The Posthuman Fashion of Iris van Herpen’ in Fashion Theory. Her most recent book publications are the second and expanded edition of Thinking through Fashion: A Guide to Key Theorists, with Agnès Rocamora; and The Four Elements of Fashion, with Alessandra Vaccari. She is co-editor, with Susan B. Kaiser, of the journal Critical Studies in Fashion & Beauty.  www.annekesmelik.nl

Dr. Roberto Filippello is Assistant Professor of Media and Culture at the University of Amsterdam, affiliated with the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis and the Centre for Middle Eastern Studies. Formerly a Killam Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of British Columbia and Marie Sklodowska-Curie Global Fellow, his research explores how fashion and textiles shape political expression and community. He examines practices such as design, photography, and film as forms of critique that destabilise colonial, heteropatriarchal, and capitalist systems. His first monograph, Dressed for Dissent: Decolonial Fashion and the Struggle for Palestine, is forthcoming with University of California Press. He has published widely in journals including Third Text, Cultural Studies, Fashion Theory, and co-edited Fashion and Feeling: The Affective Politics of Dress (2023).

Dr. Diego Semerene is Assistant Professor of queer and transgender media at the University of Amsterdam and co-founder of the Queer Analysis Research Group at the Amsterdam School of Cultural Analysis (ASCA). Semerene previously taught visual culture and fashion theory at Brown University and the American University of Paris. Semerene’s research interests lie at the intersection of fashion studies, trans theory, queer theory and Lacanian psychoanalysis.    

Dr. Jane Tynan is Assistant Professor of Design History and Theory with a background in cultural history and gender studies. She coordinates the MA Design Cultures program, teaches on the BA MKDA Design track and also contributes to the new BSc Creative Technology (VU-UT). In 2020, she joined VU Amsterdam from Central Saint Martins in London where she taught history and theory of design and developed the MA Fashion Critical Studies. Alongside extensive experience in curriculum design, course development and external examining, she is a Fellow of Advance HE (formerly HE Academy, UK) and has been visiting lecturer at Goldsmiths University of London, Royal College of Art London, University College Dublin, University of Oxford and Amsterdam University College.   

Dr. Tommy Tse is Associate Professor in the Television and Cross-Media Cultures program at the University of Amsterdam’s Department of Media Studies and a member of the Amsterdam School for Cultural Analysis. He is also affiliated with the HKU Global China Social Research Hub and the Centre for Asian Studies in Africa, University of Pretoria. His research focuses on East Asia’s media and cultural industries, creative and platform work, consumer culture, and the sociology of fashion. He is the Principal Investigator of the five-year ERC Consolidator Grant project China (Africa) Fashion Power. He is currently a co-editor of the International Journal of Fashion Studies.