Mary Washington Versus National Spending Culture?
In Juliet B. Schor’s 1999 book The Overspent American, she analyzes how Americans have changed the culture of consumerism into a “see-want-borrow-buy” mode, thus putting many in positions where they...
View ArticleAmerica and the Global Economy
While the majority of Schor’s book talks about the average American and their spending habits, the conclusion of The Overspent American puts our wallets into perspective with America and the global...
View ArticleLatinos, Inc.
Latinos, Inc. by Arlene Dávila provides an insightful and overlooked view into the way that the United States markets products to people of Latino background. One of her major discussion points is the...
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Hyperion – Saturday February 13
Who: Agent Charles Where: Downtown Fredericksburg More Specifically: Hyperion Espresso and the Toy Shop Weather: A chilly, windy 30F When: Saturday, February 13, 2010, 2pm While contemplating this...
View ArticleRecycling – an American tradition… until now.
In Susan Strasser’s Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, Strasser meticulously combs through American history to trace the history of American perspectives on recycling. The first half of the...
View ArticleA New Found Appreciation
In Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By In America, she goes undercover to investigate necessary service jobs and what it is like living in them. She worked low-wage jobs to try...
View ArticleFast Food is Unhealthy. Who Knew?
This week’s selection, Eric Schlosser’s Fast Food Nation was not a reading that anyone was amazed by. Most of us have seen the movie Fast Food Nation or Supersize Me. The book took the readers into...
View ArticleSpotsy Mall
Who: Agent Charles Where: Spotsy Mall Weather: 50 ish degrees, overcast When: Thursday March 11, 2010 My car arrived at the mall around 9:40am and immediately ran into Prof. Moon inside. When she...
View ArticleThe Conquest of Cool Part 1
I’m going to admit that when I read the title of this book I wasn’t too thrilled about the assignment. First of all, you’d think that a book about consumerism would have a more aesthetically pleasing...
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The Martin Jetpack!
I remember the days when I was a young lad playing Pilot Wings 64, and my favorite mode of play, as opposed to the helicopter or the hang glider was always the jetpack. The game was a big deal at the...
View ArticleCreating Men’s Fashion
A major point from the Conquest of Cool that we discussed in class was the Peacock Revolution and how marketers started advertising to men. This must have been a revolutionary idea at the time to make...
View ArticleBorn to Buy Part 1
In the first half Juliet B. Schor’s Born to Buy, she discusses how marketers target children to buy their products. A recurring theme in marketing that she outlined was how marketers used to send...
View ArticleWal-Mart
Who: Agent Charles Where: Wal-Mart in Central Park Weather: a comfortable day of shorts and t-shirts (but high allergies) When: Thursday April 8 This was my favorite class trip so far. I am a terrible,...
View ArticleBorn to Buy Part 2
In class we talked a bit about Channel One television which was discussed a great deal in the book. When I was a kid I always thought that Channel One was published by someone like PBS because it was...
View ArticlePurchasing Power
… Black Kids and American Consumer Culture. In this book, Elizabeth Chin examines the ways that black youth contribute to consumer culture in ways that differ from ways that white kids do. She looked...
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MOON SHOES.
When I saw these shoes the first thing I thought of the TV show Arthur and this episode I liked as a kid. Arthur got a pair of moon bounce shoes and paid for them by raking a lawn. Because the leaves...
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