Consuming pleasures : intellectuals and popular culture in the postwar world / Daniel Horowitz.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Horowitz, Daniel, 1938-

Series:

Arts and intellectual life in modern America.

Arts and intellectual life in modern America

The Arts and Intellectual Life in Modern America

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Popular culture--Economic aspects--United States--20th century.

Popular culture.

Popular culture--Economic aspects--Europe--20th century.

Consumption (Economics)--United States--Psychological aspects--20th century.

Consumption (Economics).

Consumption (Economics)--Europe--Psychological aspects--20th century.

Intellectuals--United States--Attitudes--History--20th century.

Intellectuals.

Intellectuals--Europe--Attitudes--History--20th century.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xi, 491 pages) : illustrations

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Philadelphia : University of Pennsylvania Press, c2012.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

How is it that American intellectuals, who had for 150 years worried about the deleterious effects of affluence, more recently began to emphasize pleasure, playfulness, and symbolic exchange as the essence of a vibrant consumer culture? The New York intellectuals of the 1930's rejected any serious or analytical discussion, let alone appreciation, of popular culture, which they viewed as morally questionable. Beginning in the 1950's, however, new perspectives emerged outside and within the United States that challenged this dominant thinking. Consuming Pleasures reveals how a group of writers shifted attention from condemnation to critical appreciation, critiqued cultural hierarchies and moralistic approaches, and explored the symbolic processes by which individuals and groups communicate. Historian Daniel Horowitz traces the emergence of these new perspectives through a series of intellectual biographies. With writers and readers from the United States at the center, the story begins in Western Europe in the early 1950's and ends in the early 1970's, when American intellectuals increasingly appreciated the rich inventiveness of popular culture. Drawing on sources both familiar and newly discovered, this transnational intellectual history plays familiar works off each other in fresh ways. Among those whose work is featured are Jürgen Habermas, Roland Barthes, Umberto Eco, Walter Benjamin, C. L. R. James, David Riesman and Marshall McLuhan, Richard Hoggart, members of London's Independent Group, Stuart Hall, Paddy Whannel, Tom Wolfe, Herbert Gans, Susan Sontag, Reyner Banham, and Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown.

Contents:

Introduction. Understanding Consumer Culture in the Post-World War II World

For and Against the American Grain

Lost in Translation

Crossing Borders

Reluctant Fascination

Literary Ethnography of Working-Class Life

Interlude

Pop Art from Britain to America

From Workers and Literature to Youth and Popular Culture

Class and Consumption

Sexuality and a New Sensibility

Learning from Consumer Culture

Conclusion. The World of Pleasure and Symbolic Exchange.

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. [367]-466) and index.

ISBN:

9781283898614

1283898616

9780812206494

0812206495

OCLC:

822017928