Description
Trade Review"In a now vast literature Celia Lury's new edition stands out for its clarity and critical intelligence. In addition to offering a guide through the thicket of new and old approaches, this book provides readers with a map to explore how consumption shapes personal and group identities." -- Frank Trentmann * Birkbeck College, Director of the Cultures of Consumption Research Programme 200 *
"
Consumer Culture is a gem of a book. Celia Lury writes with insight, timeliness, and a thorough mastery of the subject. The general reader, the scholar, and the student will read
Consumer Culture with the disturbing kind of satisfaction that comes from learning just how deeply consumerism has become a way of life." -- Charles Lemert * Wesleyan University *
"Consumer culture is everywhere but we rarely see it. In second revised edition, Celia Lury takes a number of vivid scenes from our daily lives and provides helpful cultural grounding for questioning our ordinary experiences as consumers. Well organized and well written, the book provides an articulated picture of an increasingly fundamental aspect of contemporary cultures, stressing the role that ethics, subjectivity and difference have in shaping what consumer culture is today. Offering theoretical definitions and practical examples, this is a user-friendly book which will attract many readers and help them through the predicament of consumer choice and its increasingly relevant symbolic centrality for subjectivity constitution." -- Roberta Sassatelli * University of Milan *
"A concise yet theoretically dense overview of the main issues that scholars and researchers of consumer culture will be focusing on for years to come. Essential."
* Choice *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: What is Consumer Culture?
1. Material Culture and Consumer Culture
2. Exchanging Things: The Economy and Culture
3. Objects, Subjects and Signs
4. Capital, Class and Consumer Culture
5. Circuits of Culture and Economy: Gender, Race and Reflexivity
6. Brands: Markets, Media and Movement
7. Consuming Ethics, or What Goes Around, Comes Around
8. Consumer Culture, Identity and Politics: When Are You (Not) a Consumer?
Bibliography
Index
