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Consumerism, Romance and the Wedding Experience
In this fascinating study, Boden considers the changing social and cultural significance of the wedding in Britain. The book focuses upon a number of issues including the commercialization of the event, the dynamics of heterosexual partnerships, and the influence of romance. The new commercial wedding is further explored in relation to broader socio-structural transformations and the modernization of marriage law. This book draws upon the experiences of marrying couples as well as media evidence.
Tying the Knot
Analyses marriage law's development since 1836-its complexity, failures to respond to societal change, and constraints on different beliefs.
Gender and Consumption
Drawing upon anthropological, sociological and historical perspectives, this volume provides a unique insight into women’s domestic consumption. The contributors argue that domestic consumption represents an important lens through which to examine the everyday production and reproduction of socio-economic relations. Through a variety of case studies (such as gambling, wedding day consumption and bedroom décor), the essays explore and reconsider the nature of public and private spaces, and the subsequent nature of domestic space - often by challenging traditional notions of what constitutes ’the domestic’. The volume demonstrates the broad range of experiences that domestic consumption offers women and reveals some of the complex meanings and motivations underpinning women’s consumption practices.
Pharmaceuticals and Society
Drawing on the latest international sociological research, this monograph takes a critical look at contemporary developments, discourses, and debate on pharmaceuticals and society. Key issues covered include pharmaceuticals and medicalization and the science and politics of drug development, testing, and regulation Investigates the constructions of pharmaceuticals in professional and popular culture and the meaning and use of medications in everyday life Investigates pharmaceuticals, consumerism, and citizenship and the impact of innovation and expectations regarding pharmaceutical futures Written in a lively, accessible style, with many engaging and important insights from key international figures in the field
The Wedding Present
In this fascinating work, Louise Purbrick offers an alternative analysis of contemporary domestic consumption. She investigates the ritualized presentation of objects upon marriage, and their subsequent cycles of exchange within the domestic sphere. Focusing on gift-giving in Britain from 1945 to the present, comparative context is provided by material from North America and Europe. Presenting new material on the enactment of exchange relationships within everyday domesticity, the book makes significant historical, theoretical and methodological contributions to the analysis of contemporary consumption. It also re-evaluates consumption theory as well as examining the methodology of recent studies in consumption and domesticity, pressing for a more rigorous approach to the use of case studies. By considering how the specific contexts in which consumption occurs, such as married domesticity, can limit possible versions of selfhood, The Wedding Present tests the assumption that consuming creates individual identities. Thus, the book argues, consumption cannot be isolated as an explanation of individual or social formation.
The Importance of Civility
Your choices, charm, and chutzpah can revitalize your community. In her first book, Bogorad reminds us that we are all social beings, who need to socially interact to thrive as individuals and to sustain strong communities. She shares with us the theory that social isolation leads to victimization and weakens our communities. And she warns us that social cannibalism may consume us if we continue to ignore our need and our obligation to socially interact with each other. If you are a person whose community has been weakened by incivility, victimization, and/or addiction, the ideas within her book may help you strengthen your community. Or if you are a person, who has minimal contact with othe...
Music, Nostalgia and Memory
How are our personal soundtracks of life devised? What makes some pieces of music more meaningful to us than others? This book explores the role of memory, both personal and cultural, in imbuing music with the power to move us. Focusing on the relationship between music and key life moments from birth to death, the text takes a cross-disciplinary approach, combining perspectives from a ‘history of emotions’ with modern day psychology, empirical surveys of modern-day listeners and analysis of musical works. The book traces the trajectory of emotional response to music over the past 500 years, illuminating the interaction between personal, historical and contextual variables that influence our hard-wired emotional responses to music, and the key role of memory and nostalgia in the mechanisms of emotional response.
Alternative Exchanges
"Exchanges have always had more than economic significance: values circulate and encounters become institutionalized. This volume explores the changing meaning of the circulation of second-hand goods from the Renaissance to today, and thereby examines the blurring of boundaries between market, gifts, and charity. It describes the actors of the market - official entities such as corporations, recognized professions, and established markets but also the subterranean circulation that develops around the need for money. The complex layers that not only provide for numerous intermediaries but also include the many men and women who, as sellers or buyers, use these circulations on countless occasions are also examined." --Book Jacket.
Ambiguous Selves
This collection of essays on selected texts in literature, film and the media is driven by a shared theme of contesting the binary thinking in respect of gender and sexuality. The three parts of this book – “contesting norms”, “performing selves” and “blurring the lines” – delineate the queer celebration of difference and deviance. They pinpoint the limitation of assumed norms and subverting them, revel in the fluid and ambiguous self that springs from the contestation of those norms, and then repeatedly transgress and, as a result, obscure the limits that separate the normal from the abnormal. The variety of texts included in the collection ranges from a discussion of queer subjects represented in film, television and literature to that of the representations of other non-normative figures (including a madwoman, a freak or a prostitute) and to gender-role contestation and gender-bending practicing evidenced in the press, theatre, film, literature and popular culture.
Newlyweds on Tour
An original, richly illustrated analysis of American honeymooning, 1820-1900, that offers fresh insights into the intersecting histories of tourism, consumerism, sentiment, sexuality, and conjugality
