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American Consumer Culture >> Content Detail



Study Materials



Readings

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The readings for this course come from the following books:

Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. (1900) (Download from Project Gutenberg)

Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt. (1922) (Download from Project Gutenberg)

Amazon logo Horowitz, Daniel, and Vance Packard, eds. Status Seekers. Bedford: St. Martin's, 1995. ISBN: 9780312111809.

Amazon logo Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York, NY: Perennial, 2005. ISBN: 9780060838584.


WEEK #TOPICSREADINGS
1Introduction to the world of goods
Part I: the rise of a mass market at the turn of the century
2Downtown shoppingDreiser. Sister Carrie. Chapters 1-3, 5-8, 10, and 12-14.
3Leisure timeDreiser. Sister Carrie. Chapters 16, 20-21, and 23-27.
4The business of consumptionDreiser. Sister Carrie. Chapters 28-39, 42, and 44-47.
Part II: making a middle-class society in interwar America
5Roaring twentiesLewis. Babbitt. Chapters 1-7.
6No class: meet to discuss papers
7Advertising the American dreamLewis. Babbitt. Chapters 8-18.
8Abundance and its critics (I)Lewis. Babbitt. Chapters 19-34.
Part III: mass culture in postwar America
9Status seeking in the suburbsPackard. Status Seekers. Chapters 1-7, 9-12, and 20-21.
10Age of televisionPackard. Status Seekers. Chapters 13-14, 17-19, 22, and 24.
Part IV: conspicuous consumption at century's end
11McDonalds, microwaves, and the mega-richSchlosser. Fast Food Nation. Part I.
12Abundance and its critics (II)Schlosser. Fast Food Nation. Part II.
13E-bay and beyond

 








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