Spring 2012 HISTORY 395-0 Research Seminar- The American Consumer, 1880-Present

"The American Consumer, 1880-Present" - Research Seminar

Americans have a complex relationship with consumption, lamenting its impact on civic life on one hand while enjoying its effects in the forms of Ipods, cars, and suburban homes on the other. This course will take a long historical view to examine this relationship, assessing the impact of consumption on American politics and society from the late nineteenth century to the present. We will explore "conspicuous consumption" of the Gilded Age, anti-chain store activism during the New Deal era, and the rise of mass consumption. We will examine twentieth-century social movements, including the black freedom struggle, the women's movement, and gay liberation, with attention to their use of consumerist rhetoric and tools such as boycotts and buycotts. Throughout the course, we will consider whether consumerism has had a depoliticizing effect, transforming engaged citizens into passive purchasers, or whether the consumer marketplace has created a new kind of politics by animating social movements, disrupting power relations in the public and private spheres, and delivering the good life on an unprecedented scale.

Students should enroll in either 392 or395 depending upon which evaluation criteria should apply.

For the 392: Blackboard assignments, class participation, two short papers, final paper.

For the 395: Blackboard assignments, class participation, one short paper, short research proposal, 15-25-page final paper based on original research.

Lizabeth Cohen, A Consumers' Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America (Vintage, 2003, ISBN 978-0375707377)

Lawrence Glickman, Consumer Society in American History: A Reader (Cornell University Press, 1999, ISBN 978-0801484865)

Theodore Dreiser, Sister Carrie (Signet Classics, 2009, ISBN 978-0451531148)

Current as of 05/06/13 11:33:24 AM