Sections offered SPRING 2019:
#8101 |
CHRISTOPHER ANDERSON |
TuTh 11:15am-12:30pm |
HU 111 |
CLASS NOTES: COLL (CASE) S&H Breadth of Inquiry credit
If you made the decision to purchase the latest generation of the Apple iPhone, then you’re aware of how deeply consumer culture permeates our lives. The smartphone is foremost among many material possessions of the 21st century that have transformed our lives and our relationship to the world in which we live. Our use of brand-name goods purchased in a mass consumption marketplace has increasingly become the cultural context for everyday living, individual identity, and even our emotional attachments to the people in our lives and the places in which we live. By tracing the history of consumer culture from the 15th to the 21st century, we will begin to understand how this happened, as we explore the terrain where politics, economics, and culture have intersected in different times and places. Our attention will be global in scope, while concentrating ultimately on the history of consumption in the United States, where we will focus largely on the tension between Americans’ identities as citizens and consumers. The goal of this course is to understand how and why societies became committed to mass consumption and, for better or worse, its far-reaching consequences. By focusing on issues related to the development of consumer culture, the readings, assignments, and classroom activities for this course are intended to help you develop competence in critical thinking about the history of culture and society, as demonstrated through exams and short essays, and advanced skill in the writing of reasoned arguments, as demonstrated in formal papers.
Course texts:
- Lizabeth Cohen – A Consumers’ Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America
- Gary Cross – An All-Consuming Century: How Commercialism Won in Modern America
- Frank Trentmann – Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers
- Joseph Turow – The Aisles Have Eyes: How Retailers Track Your Shopping, Strip Your Privacy, and Define Your Power