The Globetrotting Shopaholic: Consumer Spaces, Products, and their Cultural Places

Product Description The thrust of the literature on consumer space and society focuses on product labeling, marketing techniques and approaches to branding, as well as how mass consumer culture has reshaped individuals' interaction with needs and desires. Globetrotting Shopoholics departs from this current discourse by examining both consumption venues and the cultural, political and social reasons why we consume. It elucidates international trends in consumption politics, and how they impact the creation of consumer spaces, which, in this book, takes the form of numerous global loci including Canada's West Edmonton Mall, Japanese theme parks, shopping venues in the Philippines, and expat boutiques in Budapest. Using a wide range of epistemological frameworks including cultural ethnography, historical analysis, literary theory, sociological dissection, anthropological examination, and philosophical ruminations, this collection conveys how material objects and lifestyles are accumulated and represented internationally, and how consumer goods and spaces define who we are as human beings. About the Author Tanfer Emin Tunc received her PhD in History from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is a social and cultural historian of the modern United States, specializing in women's history/literature; gender, sexuality, and reproduction; and feminist theory. She has published articles on topics as diverse as sexuality and film, reproductive technologies, and women in the American novel. She is a Professor of American Culture and Literature at Hacettepe University (Ankara, Turkey). Annessa Ann Babic received her PhD in History from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. She is currently revising her dissertation, ""Undoing Glory: Gendered Constructions of Patriotism in Twentieth Century US Society, 1917-1972,"" for publication. She has published on topics as varied as terrorism in the post 9-11 age to American patriotism, and has also contributed to Lupus Now (a magazine for Lupus patients and those seeking material on the disease). She is currently Visiting Assistant Professor of History at Old Dominion University (Virginia, USA).