Columbia University Press
Consuming Subjects: Women, Shopping, and Business in the Eighteenth Century
Key Metrics
- Elizabeth Kowaleski-Wallace
- Columbia University Press
- Paperback
- 9780231105798
- 8.99 X 5.99 X 0.45 inches
- 0.57 pounds
- Business & Economics > Industries - Retailing
- English
Secure TransactionBook Description
While previous scholars have posited the nineteenth-century department store and arcade as the crucial place for understanding the emergence of the female consumer, Kowaleski-Wallace argues that the eighteenth century yields a keener understanding by allowing us to view the foundations of contemporary cultural practices.
Drawing on feminist criticism, cultural studies, and new historical ideas, she surveys eighteenth-century literary texts, material objects -such as china- and cultural events to illuminate the ways in which women are both controlled and empowered through images of consumption. Kowaleski-Wallace links the rise of shopping to the appearance of modern pronography: like pornography, shopping embodies a cultural fantasy, claiming to locate and control female pleasure.
This elegant study is an important contribution to eighteenth-century studies and will appeal to a broader audience of readers interested in feminist and cultural issues.
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