Humanities and Social Sciences

Art History

Staff Directory

Dr Silvia Harrison

Honorary Associate Room: Humanities 3 107 Tel: (613) 9479 1236 Fax: (613) 9479 1942 Email: S.Harrison@latrobe.edu.au Qualifications: BA(Hons), MA, PhD, La Trobe

Sylvia Harrison joined the Art History Program in 1986. She has taught courses in visual culture: "Fashion, Art and Identity", "Photography to Post-Photography" and "Designer Fashion: Haute Couture from Worth to Calvin Klein". Sylvia has published on issues in contemporary art in Australia and America. Her major publication to date is Pop Art and the Origins of Post-Modernism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001). At present she is working on a book-length project on theoretical issues in fashion photography. She has undertaken extensive research in England and America, including the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.

>>Research Interests

The theory and criticism of contemporary art in Australia and America, including the art and associated cultural activities of Andy Warhol; the history and theory of fashion and photography.

>>Research Projects

"Towards a Theory of the Fashion Photograph".

This book length project comprises a series of studies on theoretical issues in fashion photography. Sylvia is currently researching and writing about the first major category of photographic model in fashion advertising: stars of the "lighter stage." This particular study focuses on the role of celebrityhood in fashion innovation, fashion diffusion and opinion leadership and thus both the perceived function of and strategies of persuasion employed by fashion photography at its inception. Associated studies near completion concern the "Shrimpton incident" (a reference to the celebrity model Jean Shrimpton's fashion faux pas at Flemington racetrack on Derby Day 1965). One of these focuses on the role of attendant publicity, specifically press photographs, in the implementation and propagation of the mini, the major fashion trend of the sixties. Another examines the relationship between responses to Shrimpton's controversial appearance at Flemington and perceptions of Melbourne identity in the sixties.

>>Research Publications

Selected Publications
Refereed
Harrison, S., Pop Art and the Origins of Post-Modernism (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2001).
Harrison, S., "Jean Shrimpton, the 'four-inch furore' and perceptions of Melbourne identity in the sixties," chapter in Go! Melbourne in the Sixties (Melbourne: Melbourne Publishing Group, Circa Imprint). In press.

Non-Refereed
Harrison, S., "On the Cross," 1000 word essay. Commissioned and published by Linden - St. Kilda Centre of Contemporary Art, 2001.