ANT 3420 – Consumer Culture

About the Course

We examine how these goods circulate in our modern society through studies of gifting, shopping, advertising, the “rituals” of product use, heirlooming, and the politics of recycling and trashing. Specific topics include how things are drawn into our identities, how we extend our bodies and ourselves through the things (real and virtual) we manipulate, how we create relationships with other people via things, how things come to have meanings and “social lives,” the sensuality and authenticity of things, and the practices and consequences of object discard and reuse.

Course Goals

• This course introduces students to core theories and methods in anthropology and related social sciences that evaluate the multiple dimensions of peoples’ relationships with their possessions.
• This course aims to develop students’ ability to analyze their own society to provide insights into the various reasons motivating over-consumption in the modern West.
• A chief objective, put most succinctly, is to understand why we have so much stuff.

Satisfied High School Graduation Requirement Subject: Elective

High School Credit: 0.5