IP205 Consuming Cultures
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
- Introduction to Consuming Cultures
- For the Masses: Production and Design
- Making the Masses: Cultures of Refinement
- "Free" Time: Commodification and Leisure
- Selling the Dream: Advertising
- Eating the Other: Imperialism and Appropriation
- Culture Industry: Give the People What They Want
- Fitter, Happier, More Productive: Consuming Ourselves
- Waste Not, Want Not: Luxury and Excess
- Assessment Support
Term 2: Worlds of Consumption
- Ordinary Escapism: Supermarkets, Shops, and Malls
- Extraordinary Escapism: Theme Parks and Festivals
- Culture and Capital: Museums
- Consuming the Past: Heritage
- Site Seeing: Tourism
- Making Producers: Human Capital
- What Goes Around...: Systems and Consumerism
- ...Comes Back Around: Waste and Reuse
- Conclusion
- 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.