Every student will present one reading to the class. Presenters should summarize the reading's main points, assess its strengths and weaknesses, and provide some initial ideas to guide the discussion. All students will be prepared to participate in class discussions of the readings, so the presenter's duty is to begin that discussion. Every presenter must provide me a thorough outline of their presentation on the day of the presentation or lose half of their reading presentation credit.

The line ABOVE the reading indicates the person who is presenting that reading: please do not get confused and prepare the wrong reading for class.

Email me if you have any questions.

READINGS SIGN UP SHEET

            The line above the reading title is the reading you are volunteering to present.

January 25

• Will You Marry Me?:  Spectacle and Consumption in the Ritual of Marriage Proposals (Phillip Vannini, Journal of Popular Culture 38(1):169-185 [2004]).

• Bottled Water: The Pure Commodity in the Age of Branding (Richard Wilk, Journal of Consumer Culture 6(3):303-325 [2006]).

February 1

• Rubbish, Chapter 1, Yes, Wonderful Things

• Rubbish, Chapter 3, What We Say, What We Do

• Rubbish, Chapter 6, A Garbage Census?

February 8

• Domesticating Barbie: An Archaeology of Barbie Material Culture and Domestic Ideology  (Pearson, Marlys J and Paul R. Mullins,  International Journal of Historical Archaeology 3(4):225-259 [1999])

• Vehicle of the Self: The Social and Cultural Work of the H2 Hummer (Jeremy Schulz, Journal of Consumer Culture 6(1):57-86 [2006]).

February 15

• Tourism and "Sacred Ground": The Space of Ground Zero (from Marita Sturken, Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero [2007]).

February 22

• Discount Dreams: Factory Outlet Malls, Consumption, and the Performance of Middle-Class Identity (Marianne Conroy Social Text 16(1):63-83 [1998]).

• Working Out: Consumers and the Culture of Exercise (Barbara J. Phillips, Journal of Popular Culture 38(3):525-551 [2005]).

March 1

• Disentangling the Paradoxical Alliances Between Art Market and Art World (Joy Annamma and John F. Sherry, Jr., Consumption, Markets and Culture 6(3):155-181 [2003]).

• "Virgin Mary in Grilled Cheese NOT A HOAX! LOOK & SEE!": Sublime Kitsch on eBay (in Everyday eBay)

March 8

• Narratives of Value and the Antiques Roadshow: "A Game of Recognitions."  (Abby Clouse, The Journal of Popular Culture 41(1):3-20 [2008]).

• A Hard Rain: Children's Shrapnel Collections in the Second World War (Gabriel Moshenska, Journal of Material Culture 13(1):107-125 [2008]).

March 22

• Auctioning the Authentic: eBay, Narrative Effect, and the Superfluity of Memory (in Everyday eBay)

• The Contradictory Circulation of Fine Art and Antiques on eBay (in Everyday eBay)

March 29

• Productive Spaces: Girls' Bedrooms as Sites of Cultural Production (Mary Celeste Kearny, Journal of Children and Media 1(2):126-141 [2007]).

• "Cleaned to eBay Standards": Sex Panic, eBay, and the Moral Economy of Underwear (in Everyday eBay)

April 5

• `It's Not Forever': The Material Culture of Hope (Fiona R. Parrott, Journal of Material Culture 10(3):245-262 [2005]).

• My Queer eBay: "Gay Interest" Photographs and the Visual Culture of Buying (in Everyday eBay)

April 12

• Words in Stone?: Agency and Identity in a Nazi Landscape (Sharon Macdonald, Journal of Material Culture 11(1/2):105-126 [2006]).

• Expertise and Inability: Cultured Materials and the Reason for Some Retreating Lawns in London (Russell Hitchings, Journal of Material Culture 11(3):364-381 [2006]).

April 19

• Prisoners in Paradise: Subcultural Resistance to the Marketization of Tattooing (Anders Bengtsson, Jacob Osterberg, and Dannie Kjedlgaard, Consumption, Markets and Culture 8(3):261-274 [2005]).

 Last updates November 17, 2009