Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: To the dismay of many law professors, creative industries from publishing to pharmaceuticals have rushed to embrace and expand intellectual property law during the past decade. Fashion design in the U.S., however, remains something of an anachronism, replete with pirates, spies, and shady characters offering largely unregulated merchandise. While a few large luxury retailers have begun to test the power of law enforcement personnel and the courts against blatant counterfeiters, these high profile handbag wars reveal only the tip of the iceberg. Issues regarding the relationships of inspiration to imitation, class status to individual self-expression, neo-Marxist reform to capitalist expansion, and transnational to nationalist interests remain largely invisible within the legal context. Even within the academy, a focus on new digital technologies and a tendency to overlook an ostensibly frivolous gendered medium have obscured the continued existence of a creative sector in which the theft of ideas is regulated to a greater extent by social custom and technical means than by law. This paper will address the culture of the copy within the multi-billion dollar textile and clothing industry, with particular attention to historical developments in France, the United States, and China, and its lessons for intellectual property as a whole.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: This paper discusses the upscaling process taking place in the U.S. thrift industry by examining three thrift firms located along Colorado's Front Range. Participant observation in stores, in-depth interviews with industry personnel, and a survey of thrift store shoppers demonstrate that upscaling is occurring at this strata of consumption. The upscaling process entails: 1) changing the look of the stores so that they are cleaner, lighter, more organized, and made to appear more like their low-end retail competitors; 2) finding new locations for stores in suburban, high-traffic shopping centers rather than urban areas; and 3) changing the merchandise, which now includes antiques as well as new goods purchased from trade markets and cast off by giant corporate retailers. I argue that thrift firms are intentionally upscaling stores in order to remain competitive in the broader retail landscape and to attract middle-income consumers, a shift from their previously poor clientele.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: In the current force of globalization, we have seen the increasing presence of ethnic dress going across borders, whether through the flow of people or media, especially in the direction from non-Western countries to Western countries. Cheongsam, the Chinese national dress, has revived since the 1990s on both in China and in Western societies. This trend is evidenced in American popular media. In two Hollywood movies, Spider Man I (2002) and 50 First Dates (2004), Caucasian American women wear the Chinese national dress, cheongsam (qi pao). Unlike American movies engaging in Chinese issues or Chinese produced nostalgic and martial arts/gangster movies in which cheongsam naturally appears, the stories of these two movies have nothing to do with Chinese. I shall call this new presence of cheongsam “dislocation” of cheongsam. Through a close look at the representation of cheongsam wearing by the leading actresses in these two movies mentioned above at the textual level and the intertextual level, I argue that the cheongsams in Spider Man I and 50 First Dates help to reinforce the well-established Orientalism discourse, and the unequal relationship between the East and the West, although the cheongsam in 50 First Dates carries some extent of ambiguity.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Review Method: Peer Reviewed
Abstract: In the 1950’s, cultural
industries/tourism was viewed as a minor contributor to economic
growth. Cities focused on urban renewal, manufacturing and improving
infrastructure. Today all large cities (and many smaller ones) have
elaborate economic development programs that include cultural
industries and tourism as central economic sectors. Furthermore, many
view these development strategies as contributing to the urban image
and elected officials believe that conventioneers, day travelers to
sporting events and museums can help the local economy.
The urban restructuring of the 70’s and 80’s put cultural industries on
the economic development agenda. The changing demand for leisure
activities and business travel turned culture/tourism into a
“developing industry” Structural changes in the form of
deindustrialization, population decentralization, globalization;
changes in the nature of leisure; and the apparent decline of cities
(unemployment, housing decay and other social problems), made local
governments revisit their planning initiatives and implement new,
culture oriented growth strategies in the form of sports, museums,
festivals, conventions, arts, and entertainment destinations.
Within this larger framework, Chicago witnessed the (re)development of
three new stadiums – New Comiskey Park (1991) renamed in 2003 US
Cellular Field, the United Center (1994) and Soldier Field (2003) - and
the installation of lights at Wrigley Field (1988). In all of these
cases, by utilizing economic (direct and indirect benefits) and social
rationales (image building and social cohesiveness), civic boosters and
corporate owners have managed to influence local policy making to
extract millions of dollars from taxpayers. The role and response of
the local government varied significantly in each of these cases
revealing the inconsistencies of policymaking even when the
construction outcome proved the same. The varying neighborhood
response, the role of race and class, and mayoral leadership style
account for the unanticipated outcomes.

Publication Type: Conference Paper/Unpublished Manuscript
Abstract: With the rise of bisexual chic, this project seeks to explore the messages being sent by female-female sexual relations and the repercussions of bisexual staging for both the bisexual and lesbian communities. This project is composed of three studies examining same-sex infidelity in heterosexual relationships and perceptions of promiscuity in female-female sexual relations within the heterosexual dating context. Study 1A examines attributions, perceptions of sexual orientation, and relational outcomes following a same-sex infidelity. Study 1B looks at male jealousy following the same-sex infidelity of their female partners. Lastly, Study 2 explores the message that female-female kissing sends regardless of an infidelity. Overall, this project examines the role of bisexual staging on judgments of promiscuity, and what effects a new generation of bisexual chic is having on the bisexual community. With the rise of bisexual staging, female-female acts are no longer seen as distinctive indicators of a bisexual or lesbian sexual orientation. Ultimately, this paper explores the messages that female-female sexual relations sends, both as an act of infidelity and as an entity itself.