Consuming Stuff to Produce the Self
21 Mar 2013
March 21, 6:30-8:30pm; buffet opens at 6:15pm.
Rose Library, 3rd Floor Flex Space
A lively discussion regarding the origins of consumer culture (food and goods) as symbolic of social status and self identity as well as contemporary implications for health and well-being.
Speakers:
Meg Mulrooney Associate Dean, University Studies and Associate Professor of History
Stephanie Baller, Assistant Professor of Health Sciences
Speaker Bios:Stephanie Baller joined JMU in the Fall of 2010. Her research interests include the impacts of consumer culture and materialism on health and physical activity.
Meg Mulrooney became interested in Americans’ fascination with goods during grad school, when she specialized in material culture and 19th century social history. Immigrant consumption patterns were central to her first book, Black Powder, White Lace: The du Pont Irish and Cultural Identity in 19thC America (2001). She continues to explore consumerism in her American Studies classes and in her current research project, a study of race relations in Wilmington, NC.
Readings:The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence by T. H. Breen