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Instructors: PD Dr. Jan Logemann
Event type:
Lecture
Displayed in timetable as:
05.866.412
Hours per week:
2
Credits:
2,0
Language of instruction:
Englisch
Min. | Max. participants:
- | -
Requirements / organisational issues:
Mass consumption became synonymous with the “American way of life” for much of the 20th century and historians discuss the United States after World War II as a “consumer’s republic”. Consumption shapes modern political and economic structures and permeates American culture and society: How did material consumption come to play such a central role in American history? This lecture course traces changing consumption practices in the U.S. from the Colonial period to the present. We will look at the interplay between social and cultural transformations in everyday life on the one hand and the dynamics of consumer capitalism on the other. Since the late 19th century in particular, mass production and mass distribution helped to fuel a new material standard of living for Americans. Advertising, marketing and new media contributed to the growing dynamism and fast changing fashions of consumer culture. Plentiful consumer goods, moreover, were crucial to the international appeal of the United States as well. Despite its democratic promise, this “fast capitalism” was far from equal in its outcomes, however. America’s “consumer’s republic” has been profoundly shaped by ethnic and gender differences as well as social and racial inequalities. Thus, mass consumption and its social and environmental costs have been a key issue of political contestation in modern U.S. history as well. The lecture course uses mass consumption as a lens to explore issues such as race, gender, inequality and sustainability in U.S. capitalism and to illuminate the diversity of American consumer history.
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