In this lecture, Nicola Brajato will share insights and findings from his current FWO-funded postdoc project The Biopolitics of the Dressed Male Body, which explores the dressed body as one of the main battlegrounds of biopolitical normalization and subject formation. Drawing on wardrobe studies interviews conducted with queer men in Belgium and Italy, the research conceptualizes the dressed body as a critical site where biopolitical normalization, spatial politics, and affective experience converge. It does so by investigating the emotional labor inherent to queer dressed embodiments, concerned with calculating and anticipating risks before stepping into public space, navigating negative affects within it, and maintaining awareness of corporeal vulnerability.

Nicola Brajato, PhD, is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Antwerp, funded by the Research Foundation - Flanders (FWO). His work focuses on the relationship between fashion and masculinities at the intersection of fashion studies, critical studies on men and masculinities, and queer theory. Nicola has published widely on the relationship between dress, queerness, and the body in different peer-reviewed journals and he has guest-edited a special issue of the fashion studies journal ZoneModa Journal on the topic of fashion and gender (2023). He is the author of the academic book Queering Masculinities in Antwerp Fashion: Menswear, Bodies, and Sexuality (Bloomsbury, 2026) and of a forthcoming volume on Belgian avant-garde designer Walter Van Beirendonck (Anthem Press, 2027).

In person only. Only RMA students seeking credit need to register.

RMA students seeking 1EC must register by emailing d.semerene@uva.nl before May 15 (hard deadline) to receive preparatory readings. Include: full name, program/affiliation and institutional email address.