106-008 Cultural Consumption

Fifty points of first year arts including at least 25 points from a specified list of subject areas, see Prerequisites.

This subject will examine how cultural commodities are consumed and the cultural meanings and effects of consumption. Students will explore the neglect of consumption as a field of inquiry and available models for theorising consumption including market demand, desire, commodification and commodity fetishism, the politics of consumption, consumption, style, taste and cultural identity, consumer rights and legislation. Students will examine the modes and meanings of cultural consumption through historical and contemporary case studies. These may include studying the consumption of food and clothing, cigarettes and alcohol; electronic and 'white' goods, housing and cars, music and sport. As a result students should have, on completion of this subject, a strong critical understanding of consumption as a describing a range of practices both enabling and constraining.