 When you click the Amazon logo to the left of any citation and purchase the book (or other media) from Amazon.com, MIT OpenCourseWare will receive up to 10% of this purchase and any other purchases you make during that visit. This will not increase the cost of your purchase. Links provided are to the US Amazon site, but you can also support OCW through Amazon sites in other regions. Learn more. |
The readings for this course come from the following books:
Dreiser, Theodore. Sister Carrie. (1900) (Download from Project Gutenberg)
Lewis, Sinclair. Babbitt. (1922) (Download from Project Gutenberg)
Horowitz, Daniel, and Vance Packard, eds. Status Seekers. Bedford: St. Martin's, 1995. ISBN: 9780312111809.
Schlosser, Eric. Fast Food Nation. New York, NY: Perennial, 2005. ISBN: 9780060838584.
Readings table
| WEEK # |
TOPICS |
READINGS |
| 1 |
Introduction to the world of goods |
|
| Part I: the rise of a mass market at the turn of the century |
| 2 |
Downtown shopping |
Dreiser. Sister Carrie. Chapters 1-3, 5-8, 10, and 12-14. |
| 3 |
Leisure time |
Dreiser. Sister Carrie. Chapters 16, 20-21, and 23-27. |
| 4 |
The business of consumption |
Dreiser. Sister Carrie. Chapters 28-39, 42, and 44-47. |
| Part II: making a middle-class society in interwar America |
| 5 |
Roaring twenties |
Lewis. Babbitt. Chapters 1-7. |
| 6 |
No class: meet to discuss papers |
|
| 7 |
Advertising the American dream |
Lewis. Babbitt. Chapters 8-18. |
| 8 |
Abundance and its critics (I) |
Lewis. Babbitt. Chapters 19-34. |
| Part III: mass culture in postwar America |
| 9 |
Status seeking in the suburbs |
Packard. Status Seekers. Chapters 1-7, 9-12, and 20-21. |
| 10 |
Age of television |
Packard. Status Seekers. Chapters 13-14, 17-19, 22, and 24. |
| Part IV: conspicuous consumption at century's end |
| 11 |
McDonalds, microwaves, and the mega-rich |
Schlosser. Fast Food Nation. Part I. |
| 12 |
Abundance and its critics (II) |
Schlosser. Fast Food Nation. Part II. |
| 13 |
E-bay and beyond |
|