Christina Fabiani

Christina Fabiani examines the history of tattooing practices in twentieth-century American culture to reveal the fluid boundaries between understandings of deviance and normativity.  Her MA thesis, completed at the University of Victoria, uses extensive archival material and an interdisciplinary approach to explain how the meanings of tattoos shifted and to identify factors that influenced the public’s perceptions of body ink as deviant or acceptable. Her PhD dissertation will continue to demonstrate that tattooing practices created and perpetuated but also destabilized and influenced gender-, race-, and class-based American ideals, and will further expose the nuanced connections of body ink with American culture, the malleability of social conventions, and the complex webs of power relations constantly in flux. At Queen's, she is thrilled to work with Dr. Jeff Brison (History) and Dr. Laila Haidarali (History/Gender Studies).