The course, being taught next spring by Professor Wendy Belcher, is offered through the Comparative Literature and African-American Studies departments. Its full title is "Model Memoirs: The Life Stories of International Fashion Models." And yes, there will be in-class visits:

Explores the life-writing of American, African, and Asian women in the fashion industry as a launching point for thinking about race, gender, and class. How do ethnicity and femininity intersect? How are authenticity and difference commodified? How do women construct identities through narrative and negotiate their relationships to their bodies, families, and nations? This course will include guest lectures by fashion editors and models; discussions of contemporary television programs, global fashion, and cultural studies; and student self-narratives about their relationships with cultural standards of beauty, whether vexed or not.

How much I would pay to be a fly on the wall the day the class asks Vogue's Candy Pratts Price how she commodifies authenticity and difference.

Far be it from windbag me to suggest that modeling is lacking in meat for young people's intellectual delectation. (Besides, it's my limited experience of these things that the professors behind the fluffiest-sounding courses team the material with theory from from only the most punishing and willfully obtuse of the French deconstructionists. Either that or my Advanced Topics In Popular Culture: "Breakin' II, Electric Boogaloo" course was just totally hard.) But I can't help but notice that Prof. Belcher hasn't yet fleshed out her reading list. It includes a mere three items: Alek Wek's memoir, Alek: From Sudanese Refugee to International Supermodel, Irina Pantaeva's Siberian Dream, and Jillian Shanebrook's Model: Life Behind the Makeup. Clearly this needs some work.

Given my (onetime) profession and my (eternal) predilection for reading, I have kind of a Thing for books written by models. Often, they're unintentionally hilarious — even before Naomi Campbell came out and admitted she had writer Caroline Upcher to thank for her novel Swan, did anyone actually believe she'd written it? Others can be strangely affecting: Susan Moncur's They Still Shoot Models My Age is awesomely written, if kind of insane. (Among other things, it taught me that notorious gaping asshole photographer David Bailey called his models "ratface.") Shoot is now out of print, but there's no reason the Comp Lit whippersnappers couldn't scour Amazon for second-hand copies. I'd put Crystal Renn's recently released memoir, Hungry — written with Marjorie Ingall — on the list, too. If Belcher is interested in models as women who are permitted, by virtue of their physical aspect, to move frictionlessly across cultures and classes, you could do worse than to consider the experience of a 14-year-old girl from small-town Mississippi thrust into the Manhattan fashion industry.

I have not read Cheryl Diamond's Model: A Memoir, but other sources have said it accurately portrays the realities of modeling. For something with pep and honesty and humor, assign Elyse Sewell's LiveJournal. And definitely make 'em read Waris Dirie's Desert Flower. If they can handle the genital mutilation.

If it were up to me, I'd have the students read all of the above, and then watch Sara Ziff and Ole Schell's documentary, Picture Me. And Frederick Wiseman's Model.

And then, we'd all eat cupcakes and never look at fashion magazines or catalogs or billboards or JC Penney's fliers the same way again.

Image via British Vogue

Princeton's Next Top Model (Class) [The Ink]
Course Details For Model Memoirs: The Life Stories of International Fashion Models [Princeton Registrar]

The Good:
They don't call her The Divine Miss M for nothing.

Nom nom Colin Firth and the pretty lady on his arm.

Good for Heather Matarazzo and her girlfriend for keeping it simple.

Words I never thought I would say: Kelly Killoren Bensimon looks fresh, sophisticated, and classic in her exaggerated shirting dress. This is by far one of the best looks of the night: So effortless.

Also, I love Olivia Palmero taking boho chic (a heinous phrase, I know) to the max.

I have no idea if daughter-of-Meryl Mamie Gummer can act, but I totally love how she dresses. In short black she remains cute and sweet.

Sure both Kathy Najimy and Gloria Steinem have been sporting the same look, respectively, for like the past 15 years now — but I wouldn't mind aging like Steinem and stealing her outfit when I do.

Jesus, even Sarah Jessica Parker and Matthew Broderick turned up looking kicky last night.

Go for the gold, Helen Hunt.

The Bad:
Bernadette Peters is inching dangerously close to pathetic old cat lady in this outfit.

Aw, it's Magda (aka Lynn Cohen)! Only, she looks like she stepped out of a time machine that just returned from 1988.

No Ricki, no Ricki, no!

Ew: It's Jessica Seinfeld. (Oh and also that rich famous dude she married.)

The Ugly:
And today Irina Pantaeva shows up dressed like a ladybug.

[Images via FilmMagic.]

The Good:

Eva Amurri knows how to showcase what her mama gave her.
Speaking of which, these are the moments when I can't believe that Amurri's mama Susan Sarandon played Janet in The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Also, how cute is her son Miles?
Yay for Gabrielle Brennan, the appropriately-dressed child of the day.
Damn you, Helena Christensen.
Irina Pantaeva should be rewarded for curbing her nascent Bai Ling-esque fashion instincts.
This is the best I have ever seen Nicole Miller look. Sigh.
I wish I could quit you, Olivia Palmero.

The Bad:
What's with the shiny, tiny pantsuit Hana Soukupova?
Oh, Maggie Rizer: Just 'cause your stepdaddy stole all your money doesn't mean you can't make some effort in dressing yourself.

The Ugly:
I love Dita von Teese. I am horrified to witness Evan Rachel Wood morphing into her.

All images via Getty.

The Good: I'm not gonna lie: Chan Marshall (aka Cat Power) is on my 'Good' list simply because I'm obsessed with her music. Wearing horizontal nautical stripes, Marchesa designer Georgina Chapman hopes to distract from the girth of her husband Harvey Weinstein. She fails. Norah Jones looks like she's on her way to a middle-school dance.

The Bad: Susan Sarandon looks like she's chaperoning that dance. Will someone please tell Zoe Kravitz that she's not in middle school? The holes in her tights do not make her look cool or edgy. It's a sad day indeed when Agyness is the best-dressed person on the 'Bad' list. Enough already, Erin Fetherston. Kelly Bensimon looks like a bad throwback to the early '90s. Those boots! That dress! That belt! Clearly this is the reason she is no longer married to ELLE's Gilles Bensimon or editing ELLE Accessories. Dear Ziyi Zhang: "No" to the sequined beret.

The Ugly: Thanks a lot, Irina Pantaeva, for triggering my vertigo this early in the day.

[Images via Getty.]

The Good:
With little daughter Tallulah on his arm, Bruce Willis' actual date Emma Hemming is totally forgettable.
Irina Pantaeva has still got it.
Good for Russell Simmons: The hat is nice and Porschia Coleman seems a lot less heinous than Kimora.

The Bad:
Why is Anika Noni Rose not dressed for the red carpet?
Now surely Andre Leon Talley can do better than this. Did he have American Apparel make their gross pleather leggings into a coat for him?
Send in some queer eyes to get Carson Kressley a better fitting suit and some blotting papers, stat.
Is Donna Karan preparing for an apocalypse that renders her an evil Lawrence of Arabia?
As a major Debbie Harry fan, this hurts me to say, but these yellow plaid pants (are they flannel?!) make my heart cry a thousand times.
Glenda Bailey has clearly forgotten that a high-neck velvet dress is just one step above wearing an ugly Christmas sweater without irony.
Christian Siriano in yet another vest-and-skinny-black-pants look? He needs a new outfit.
Socialite Olivia Palermo's dress is just trying too hard.

The Ugly:
Arden Wohl's outfit is so bad it is clearly exhausted her with its ugliness.

[Images via Getty.]

The Good:
Irina Pantaeva looks kinda crazy and I totally love it.
Could May Anderson look any hotter?
Aw, daughter-of-Meryl/up-and-coming actress Mamie Gummer looks pretty!
Sure, I wish she weren't in a tapered pant, but Kimberly Peirce is unabashedly herself in her outfit.

The Bad:
Sandra Nilsson dress looks, well, a little Emperor's Club-ish.
Tatum O'Neal looks broke.
There's nothing wrong with Melissa George's dress, per se. Other than it reads a little slutty/early 90's.
Catalina Sandino Moreno might be a great actor, but couldn't she have worn something other than jeans and a t-shirt?

The Ugly:
NO sheer nude pantyhose, Kimberly Guilfoyle!

[Images via Getty.]