Lecture by Sarah-Maria Schober (University of Luzern) as part of the lecture series "Unruly Hair – From Disobedience to Agency. Transdisciplinary Perspectives on Children's Media".

Location: Technical University of Darmstadt, room: S101/A4, Karolinenplatz 5, 64289 Darmstadt
Online participation via Zoom: LINK
Language: German
 

Abstract:
This lecture examines wig fashion in the late 17th and 18th centuries—which in some cases extended to children’s and youth fashion—against the backdrop of Europe’s colonial expansion and the increasingly rigid racial theories of the time. Human hair—its color, but especially its textures, which were often described as unruly—represented a central aspect of early modern strategies of difference. This was increasingly true, particularly in the context of the racialization of Blackpeople—a process that further enriched older conceptions of “curly” hair in Europe and the colonial world. Texts, images, and objects shaped notions of racialized hair, but also of youthful and aged hair textures, of race, as well as of childhood and old age. To what extent did these processes take place in the minds, but also on the heads, of younger and older people? Can concrete effects on the treatment of hair be identified—and might this, at best, lead to a rediscovery of the wig craze of the time as a medium for negotiating hair differences?

About the lecture series: 

From dust-free shoes to a neatly combed head, the “well-groomed” child becomes the focal point of discursive negotiations surrounding contemporary ideals of hygiene education and virtue. Unruly (children’s) hair, on the other hand, reflects a tension between praiseworthy cleanliness and reprehensible vanity, a tension that is culturally, historically, and regionally coded. In contemporary art and literature, unruly hair can be portrayed as a symbol of self-empowerment, but also of exclusion. These depictions continue to reflect social taboos, particularly when (female) body hair is addressed. When unruly hair is portrayed as untamed, diverse, and independent, viewers are invited to rethink beauty: as something that is linked to diversity, texture, and resistance itself. In this lecture series, national and international experts will shed light on the multifaceted aesthetics and semantics of (children’s and adolescents’) hair as depicted in stories and artistic imagery from the perspectives of cultural studies and literary studies.

Participants are expected to productively and critically engage with the subject matter and to be willing to actively participate in the discussions.

The lecture series will take place during the 2026/27 winter semester and is open to students from all disciplines at TU Darmstadt, Goethe University Frankfurt, and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, as well as to the interested public. 

The lecture series is part of the Strategic Alliance of the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) and is funded by the RMU Teaching Funding for Teaching.