Course Description: Although we are increasingly aware that our habits of consumption affect the environment, it is hard to imagine that consuming patterns are capable of being changed. In this class, students will learn that practices of consumption are both socially and historically constructed, that they change dramatically over time, and that there are (and always have been) urgent moral issues connected to practices of consumption. We will explore the global, social, and environmental dimensions of consumption, studying things like the 1897 Sears catalog, 1950s television shows, Canada Goose jackets, DIY manuals and makerspaces, and hippy cookbooks of the 1960s.
History 1710 / Sociology 1714
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