announcements

 

Vol. 7, No. 2, May 2006

Announcements

Announcements

Third World Consumer Working Group Forming

I would like to solicit interest for a working group on "Third World" consumers, an understudied, but globally significant group. To begin, I want to consider the following preliminary questions:

  • Who are "Third World consumers?" How would we define them?
  • What goods and services matter most to them, and why?
  • How do consumption practices in the "Third World" fit--or create disjuncture--within the broader discussion of consumers, commodities and consumption?
  • What existing analytic and theoretical frameworks are best suited for understanding this topic?

Possible goals for developing this group include: creating a bibliography, develop a list of scholars working on related issues, considering (if a critical mass develops) a venue for publication for this path-breaking work, i.e. in a special issue of a journal, or in an edited volume. If anyone is interested, please contact Amelia Rosenberg Weinrebat, ameliaro@sas.upenn.edu

Consumption Teaching Materials to be available at ASA Meeting

The Second Edition of Syllabi and Teaching Resources in the Sociology of Consumption will be available at the ASA meeting in Montreal in August. In addition to a couple dozen graduate and undergraduate syllabi for courses taught on consumption, there will be a substantial list of useful URLs along with short essays by scholars about teaching consumption in the contemporary moment. Dan Cook, J. Michael Ryan and Meghan Ashlin Rich are co-editors.

Consumer Culture Theory Conference and Web site

The link for the Consumer Culture Theory Conference Web Site is: http://www.nd.edu/~markdept/020812/conference/

The conference will be held August 1-3 on the campus of the University of Notre Dame.