Ilya Parkins

Associate Department Head, Professor

Gender, Women and Sexuality Studies

Other Titles: Undergraduate Program Advisor, Program Coordinator - GWST
Office: ART 258
Phone: 250.807.9625
Email: ilya.parkins@ubc.ca

Research Summary

Feminist theories, especially epistemologies; history and theory of fashion; theories of modernity and early twentieth-century cultural formations; femininities; Periodical media’

Courses & Teaching

Gender, Race, Sexuality and Power I: An Introduction; Women and Popular Culture; Critical Foundations: Feminism and Difference; Perspectives on Gendered Bodies; Feminist Research Methodologies; Gender, Dress and Fashion: Histories and Theories; Femininities

Degrees

PhD, Social and Political Thought, York University
MA, Women’s Studies, York University

Research Interests & Projects

(Re)Dressing Weddings: The Politics of Feminist Wedding Culture and Apparel
Funded by SSHRC 2020-24. A podcast series about this work is available at www.redressingweddings.com or on all major podcast apps.

This project examines the wedding apparel imaginaries and stories of people who identify as feminist or queer, focusing on the relationship between political values and fashion.

Selected Publications & Presentations

Books

Fashion and Feeling: The Affective Politics of Dress, ed. Roberto Filippello and Ilya Parkins. Palgrave Macmillan, 2023.

Fashion, New Feminist Essays. Ed. Ilya Parkins and Maryanne Dever. London: Routledge, 2020.

Poiret, Dior and Schiaparelli: Fashion, Femininity and Modernity. London: Berg, 2012.

Cultures of Femininity in Modern Fashion. Ed. Ilya Parkins and Elizabeth M. Sheehan. Lebanon, NH: University Press of New England, 2011.

Articles

(with Rosie Findlay) “Making a Reality: Inclusive Wedding Vendors and Extramarket Morality.” QED: Journal of GLBTQ Worldmaking 10, no. 1 (2023): 77-98.

“Feminist Sentimentalism? Ambivalent feeling in inclusive digital wedding media.” Cultural Studies 37, no. 4 (2023): 647-68.

(with Rosie Findlay) “Commodity Feminism and Dressing the ‘Best Self’ on A Practical Wedding”. Australian Feminist Studies (2021).

“Queering the ‘Modern Bride’: Lessons from Vogue.” Journal of Modern Periodical Studies 11, no. 2 (2020): 292-309.

“You’ll Never Regret Going Bold’: Moods of Wedding Apparel on A Practical Wedding.” Fashion Theory 25, no.  (2021): 799-817.

“Becoming in the Eyes of Others: The Relational Gaze in Boudoir Photography.” In Revisiting the Gaze: The Fashioned Body and the Politics of Looking, edited by Morna Laing and Jacki Willson. London: Bloomsbury, 2020.

“Relations with the Dead? Ethics of Feminist Memorialization in Service Learning.” In Feminist Praxis Revisited: Critical Reflections on Community-University Engagement, ed. Amber Dean, Jennifer L. Johnson and Susanne Luhmann. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2018.

“Figurative Mobility: Veiling, Orientalism and Unknowing Women in US Vogue, 1917- 25.” Fashion Studies 1, no. 1 (2018): 1-31.

“Domesticating Enchantment: Mediating Feminine Magic in the Interwar French Fashion Magazine.” French Cultural Studies 28, no. 4 (2017): 344-59.

“Eve Goes Synthetic’: Modernizing Feminine Beauty, Renegotiating Masculinity in Britannia and Eve.” In Women’s Periodicals and Print Culture in Britain, 1918-39: The Interwar Period, edited by Catherine Clay et al. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2017.

“Hurricane Sandy in Vogue: Fashion, Disaster, and Urban Neoliberalism.” Australian Feminist Studies 30, no. 85 (2015): 221-37.

EDITORIAL WORK

Parkins, Ilya and Lise Shapiro Sanders, ed. Special issue of Feminist Theory on Fashion Media. Vol 23, no. 3 (2022).

Sanders, Lise Shapiro and Ilya Parkins, ed. Special Issue of Journal of Modern Periodical Studies on Fashion in the Magazines. Vol. 11, no. 2 (2020).

Parkins, Ilya and Maryanne Dever, ed. Special issue of Australian Feminist Studies on Fashion. Vol. 33,no. 98 (2018).

Google Scholar

Selected Grants & Awards

Winner of the 2013 Provost’s Award for Teaching Excellence and Innovation (UBC, Okanagan Campus)