Semester:
Offered:
Instructor: Briana Smith
Meeting time: Wednesday, 9:45-11:45 am
In response to climate change, some experts suggest the key to our survival is curbing mass consumption and working toward a “no-growth” economic model. Yet consumption levels continue to rise globally. We can’t stop ourselves from buying more stuff. To help us better understand why, this course traces the rise of mass consumer culture in modern Europe from the 19th century industrial revolution to the late twentieth century. Over the semester we will seek to answer the following questions: How has the meaning of buying and possessing stuff changed over the last two hundred years? How were modern urban spaces shaped around the twin delights of consumption and leisure? How did consumer culture become a source of class distinction, identity formation, gendered stereotypes, and creative expression? What role did consumer culture play in promoting European imperial and colonial projects and resisting empire? In the postwar era, how did modernization and Americanization change European consumer habits? How did groups like the Situationist International, Dutch Provos, and West Berlin’s Kommune 1 levy political critiques against mass consumption as a source of alienation? How did these critiques evolve into larger anti-globalization movements in the 1990s? We will encounter this history through a variety of primary sources including novels (Zola’s Ladies Paradise), films (Fassbinder’s Lola; Tati’s Mon Oncle), popular theorists (Barthes; Marcuse; Veblen), political manifestos, and visual art & design (Bauhaus; pop art; fashion). Course assignments will be focused on the development of writing skills through a series of short essays, a midterm essay, and a final paper.