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School for Cross-faculty Studies Liberal Arts

IP205 Consuming Cultures

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Module Overview

On this Year 2 core module, we explore a key context of contemporary life: consumer capitalist culture. From the food we eat to the clothes we wear, the things we consumer shape our identities, relationships, and experiences in a wide range of different ways.

Drawing on interdisciplinary approaches, we examine consumer cultures and societies, practices of consumption, and what it means to be a consumer.

Module aims:

By the end of this module, you will be able to:

  • demonstrate an in-depth understanding of interdisciplinary theorisations of consumption
  • critically assess a range of frameworks and methodologies for interpreting consumer cultures
  • analyse the language, practice, and representation of consumption and consumerism across different times, cultures, and media
  • work collaboratively with colleagues to design and develop resources
  • explore problems and generate well-informed responses to a wide range of issues relating to consumption
  • critically consider notions of use, value, and waste in relation to consumption
  • demonstrate advanced advanced cognitive skills, such as critical analysis, text analysis, and independent research

This is a Year 2 Liberal Arts core module.

Module Leader: Dr Kim Lockwood Clough

30 CATS

Terms 1-3 | 20 weeks

2 hour workshop per week

Not available to students outside the School for Cross-Faculty Studies.

Please note: Module availability and staffing may change year on year depending on availability and other operational factors. The School for Cross-Faculty Studies makes no guarantee that any modules will be offered in a particular year, or that they will necessarily be taught by the staff listed on these pages

Example syllabus:

Please note that this syllabus is purely indicative, and actual module content may differ.

Term 1: Creating Consumers
  1. Introduction to Consuming Cultures
  2. For the Masses: Production and Design
  3. Making the Masses: Cultures of Refinement
  4. "Free" Time: Commodification and Leisure
  5. Selling the Dream: Advertising
  6. Eating the Other: Imperialism and Appropriation
  7. Culture Industry: Give the People What They Want
  8. Fitter, Happier, More Productive: Consuming Ourselves
  9. Waste Not, Want Not: Luxury and Excess
  10. Assessment Support
Term 2: Worlds of Consumption
  1. Ordinary Escapism: Supermarkets, Shops, and Malls
  2. Extraordinary Escapism: Theme Parks and Festivals
  3. Culture and Capital: Museums
  4. Consuming the Past: Heritage
  5. Site Seeing: Tourism
  6. Making Producers: Human Capital
  7. What Goes Around...: Systems and Consumerism
  8. ...Comes Back Around: Waste and Reuse
  9. Conclusion
  10. Assessment Support
Assessments:

There are four assessments on this module:

Assessment Weighting Description
Group Media Production 30%

group media production exploring an aspect of consmer culture
Site Analysis 20% analytical essay, visual essay, or site plan
Research Project 50% independent research project exploring consumer cultures

These assessments are designed to develop key academic and transferable skills, such as: independent research, critical analysis, persuasive argumentation, creative thinking, problem-solving, and communicating with a range of different audiences.

Illustrative reading list:

  • Baudrillard, Jean. 2019/1981. For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign. Translated by Charles Levin. London and New York: Verso.
  • Berger, Arthur Asa. 2010. The Objects of Affection: Semiotics and Consumer Culture. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Bourdieu, Pierre. 2010/1984. Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Featherstone, Mike. 2007. Consumer Culture and Postmodernism, 2nd edition. London: SAGE Publications.
  • Gwynne, Joel, ed. 2022. The Cultural Politics of Femvertising: Selling Empowerment. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
  • Hackley, Christopher E. 2005. Advertising and Promotion: Communicating Brands. London: SAGE.
  • Jhally, Sut. 1990. The Codes of Advertising: Fetishism and the Political Economy of Meaning in the Consumer Society. New York: Routledge.
  • Kravets, Olga, Pauline Maclaran, Steven Miles, and Alladi Venkatesh, eds. 2018. The SAGE Handbook of Consumer Culture. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi, and Singapore: SAGE Publications Ltd.
  • Llamas, Rosa, and Russell W. Belk, eds. 2023. The Routledge Handbook of Digital Consumption, 2nd edition. Abingdon, Oxon, and New York: Routledge.
  • Marx, Karl. 2015/1867. Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, Vol. I. Translated by Samuel Moore and Edward Aveling. Edited by Frederick Engels. Moscow: Progress Publishers.
  • Navas, Eduardo, Owen Gallagher, and Xtine Burrough, eds. 2017. The Routledge Companion to Remix Studies. New York: Routledge.
  • Okazaki, Shintaro, ed. 2012. Handbook of Research on International Advertising. Cheltenham and Northampton, MA, USA: Edward Elgar.
  • Parkin, Katherine J. 2007. Food is Love: Advertising and Gender Roles in Modern America. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.
  • Reichert, Tom, and Jacqueline Lambiase. 2005. Sex in Consumer Culture: The Erotic Content of Media and Marketing. London and New York: Taylor & Francis.
  • Rogers, Anna S., and Mathieu Deflem. 2022. Doing Gender in Heavy Metal: Perceptions of Women in a Hypermasculine Subculture. London: Anthem Press.
  • Sassatelli, Roberta. 2007. Consumer Culture: History, Theory and Politics. London and Los Angeles: SAGE.
  • Veblen, Thorstein. 2016. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Open Road Integrated Media.
  • Vodanovic, Lucía, ed. 2020. Lifestyle Journalism: Social Media, Consumption and Experience. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Wharton, Chris, and Jonathan Hardy. 2015. Advertising: Critical Approaches. London and New York: Routledge.
  • Wherry, Frederick F., and Ian Woodward, eds. The Oxford Handbook of Consumption. Oxford: Oxford University Press.