Consumption, Identity and Style: Marketing, Meanings, and the Packaging of Pleasure (Comedia)

Annotation There is increasing talk, as we head for the last decade of the millenium, of the post-industrial leisure society. Production is geared more and more to the consumer needs of a highly mobile and affluent society, which is largely unaware that its most intimate moments and private pleasures in consumer culture are constructions of a powerful and manipulative consumer market. Consumption, Identity and Style sets out to explore the role of consumer culture in the contemporary political economy. The relation of the individual to the world of leisure is not a simple one of self-determination: style, subjectivity, and the shifting identity of the contemporary consumer carry within them a set of meanings which work, through our consciousness and our everyday perceptions, on the politics of the age. Essays on the world of fashion and the foodies, on the market''s creation of popular reading or holidaymaking, on consumption in popular music, on television, and the dynamics of everyday life, offer detailed interpretations of our most accepted rituals and practices The Writings Of Michel Foucault And Jacques Derrida Pose A Serious Challenge To The Old Established, But Now Seriously Compromised Forms Of Thought. In This Compelling Book, Roy Boyne Explains The Very Significant Advances For Which They Have Been Responsible, Their General Importance For The Human Sciences, And The Forms Of Hope That They Offer For An Age Often Characterized By Scepticism, Cynicism And Reaction. The Focus Of The Book Is The Dispute Between Foucault And Derrida On The Nature Of Reason, Madness And 'otherness'. The Range Of Issues Covered Includes The Birth Of The Prison, Problems Of Textual Interpretation, The Nature Of The Self And Contemporary Movements Such As Socialism, Feminism And Anti-racialism. Roy Boyne Argues That Whilst The Two Thinkers Chose Very Different Paths, They Were In Fact Rather Surprisingly To Converge Upon The Common Ground Of Power And Ethics. Despite The Evident Honesty, Importance And Adventurousness Of The Work Of Foucault And Derrida, Many Also Find It Difficult And Opaque. Roy Boyne Has Performed A Major Service For Students Of Their Writings In This Compelling And Accessible Book. First Published in 1990. This is a book about the meaning of our lives as consumers. It is about leisure, lifestyle, and markets in today's consumer culture. In 1986 one measure of people's use of time in Britain identified television watching as the major activity for both men and women outside paid employment and sleeping. Explores the role of consumer culture in the contemporary economy, showing how our private leisure activities are constructions of a powerful and manipulative consumer market. First Published in 1990. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company