“ANTH 284 Culture and Consumption”
Fall 2014
Instructor: Rudi Colloredo-Mansfeld
Teaching Assistants: Colleen Betti, Bryan Dougan
Email: rudi-colloredo@unc.edu
Office: 413 Alumni Building
Office hours: Tuesday, Wednesday 10:30-12:00
Course Description:
Why do consumer goods have such a hold on us?
From giant stacks of yams to iPhones, humans have endlessly invented status symbols. And with rules about
diets or clothes, societies have made their cultural world sacred, legitimized political power, and divided social groups.
In this course, we will learn about why commodities work so effectively to create human relations. On a personal
level, we will ask the following types of questions: Do ethnically correct dolls empower girls in a racially divided society?
Can buying local, grass-fed beef help the environment and save family farms? Was looting a revolutionary act in the
2011 London riots? Engaging such issues, the course readings offer cultural snapshots of the diverse ways that
communities create themselves in an era of globalization.
More broadly, we ask key questions about the trajectory of industrial society: How important are material
desires as a factor in cultural change? Are we moving towards a single, global consumer culture? How do alternatives to
consumerism emerge? As we answer these questions, we will consider whether consumer activism can build a better
society.
What should you learn from this course?

Introduction to basic approaches in anthropology. The course introduces anthropological thought and methods to
students with no background in the discipline. The readings allow students to ask new questions about what is
very familiar: the Nike brand, McDonalds, and gift giving at Christmas. Additional readings ask students to look
for the humanity in what at first appears strange or misguided: mothers who fatten-up daughters at puberty or
looting at times of urban unrest. Throughout the course we use a set of essays on fat to see just how
anthropologists work.

Comparative cultural analysis. The course readings have been selected to give practice in comparative methods.
You should gain an analytical vocabulary—a precise way to define “status,” “fashion,” “gift exchange,” and so
on—that helps you see connections in human behavior at different times and places.

Practice in reading social theory. In interactive classes, students work through exercises that apply theoretical ideas
to forces of consumer society. The syllabus introduces short sections of classic readings from Marx, Weber,
Veblen, Simmel, and Klein and the instructor and teaching assistants guide students on interpretive themes.
Students come to understand the intellectual history of common ideas such as “conspicuous consumption” and
“the protestant work ethic.”

Practical experience in ethnographic research. Students participate in a multi-step, IRB approved ethnographic
research project on college consumption. With a combination of extended interviews and a method from
cognitive anthropology, students will be able learn how to support social analysis with a broad set of field data.
Required Texts:
Chin, Elizabeth, Purchasing Power: Black Kids and American Consumer Culture
Klein, Naomi, No Logo
Pollan, Michael The Omnivore’s Dilemma
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Kulick and Meneley, Fat
Accommodation: We need to hear from anyone who has a disability, which may require some modification of seating,
testing or other class requirements so that appropriate arrangements may be made. Please contact either the instructor
or the TAs after class, during office hours, or by email.
Honor: We support the honor code and expect you to abide by its rules.
Large Class Etiquette:
1) Generally, lap top use is NOT allowed because it has become a vehicle of too much distracting web surfing.
However, I will ask you to bring them to some classes so that we can work together on some tasks.
2) Queries and comments for instructor are fine. Try to stump him. See what his response is.
Course Requirements
Assessment in this course rests on four components:
1) Participation (recitation sections, reading responses, classroom responses)
2) Class Research Assignment (developed in a sequence of four tasks)
3) Midterm Examinations (2 exams that combine multiple choice and an essay)
4) Final Exam (cumulative and surprisingly thought-provoking)
1) Participation (recitation sections, reading responses)
20%
30%
30%
20%
20%
Recitations (35 points): Besides the large class meetings, this course has regularly scheduled recitation sections. These
sections will meet about every two weeks and usually will take the place of the Friday full-class meeting for those weeks.
Each recitation section will have about 20 students and will be led by one of your teaching assistants. These sections will
give you an opportunity to discuss issues, prepare for tests, and, most critically, work on the class research project.
Reading Responses (35 points): To prepare for class and earn participation points, students will post a response to each
reading. Responses should be short and interesting. Criticism and personal opinion are fine if backed by relevant
examples. Open-ended queries work too. The most helpful questions and comments include a quotation from the
reading itself. Responses are due at 1:00 pm on the day the reading is listed, forums shut once class begin. Please use
the format found in the following example (we need your name with each post so that we can share the comments and
know who the author is):
Jacob Day
Is the sole difference in transaction and gift exchange the fact that a transaction usually serves to
terminate the exchange process instead of continue obligations as with gifts? Further as exchange grows
“to as many items as the existing exchange technology will comfortably allow” (Kopytoff, 72), will
anything remain sacred to society? I personally feel that in our monetary culture that too much has
already been lowered to the standard of the almighty dollar.
Details:
 Comments are due before class starts. The Sakai forum will be closed to any late posting. Timely posting is
important so that some responses can be shared in class.
 Links to web-based media, YouTube links or other online material are encouraged and when appropriate,
shared with the wider class.
Classroom Responses (10 Points): Approximately once a week in the lecture class, students will have an opportunity to
respond to a classroom poll or “two minute essay.” To earn the 10 points students must respond to a minimum of six
polls or mini essay prompts. No partial credit will be given.
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2) Class Research Assignment
30%
Goals
Broadly speaking, we want to understand the power of consuming for shaping life here at Carolina and by extension the
society we belong to. The project works as a kind of rapid-assessment-ethnography that uses field interviews,
consumption theory, and analysis of popular media to give an insider’s account student life here in Chapel Hill. The
writing proceeds in stages and you will use feedback on your earlier assignments to fine tune your ideas and sharpen
your prose. We work collectively to develop the project, to prepare for the ethnographic interviews, and to share
interview responses. Assignments and assessments are graded individually.
Task Outline:
Task 1: Complete CITI certification for Human Subjects research and the Conflict of Interest (COI) certification (5 pts).
Each certification is administered on-line through the Office of Human Research Ethics (OHRE) website. Once you are
certified you are eligible to work on any human subjects research on this campus. If you have already been certified, you
do not need to take the test again, but rather show evidence of having passed it.
Task 2: Paper 1: Idea-driven reflection on personal consumption (40 points). With a thoughtful summary of one or two
of the class readings, students will explain what it takes in their own experience to shift goods from being utilitarian
items or status symbols into meaningful possessions; to change spending from satisfaction of individual wants to moment
of creativity; or to turn private consumption into social connection. Paper is an opportunity to write about course ideas
and sections of this paper can be reused in final paper. (4 pages)
Task 3: Interviews (25 points). Using the jointly created questionnaire each of you will interview two other students,
focusing on consumption, ideals, community and friendships and ideals.
Task 4: Final Write Up (50 points). The final part of this assignment is each student’s own assessment of the nature of
ideals and spending among students at the University of North Carolina and the role goods play in making social
relations. In the final write up you will draw upon the field interviews, a relevant course reading, and your own
reflections that you have been writing in both reading responses and the prior paper. (6 pages)
3) Midterm Examinations (60 points each, 120 points)
30%
The course has two midterm examinations, which are a combination of in-class multiple choice questions and short
essay that will be submitted on line. The mid-terms cover to cover parts 1 and 2 of the course.
4) Final Exam
(80 points)
20%
Your final exam will be a combination short answer and essay exam in which you draw on your previous writing in the
class to address the question: are popular consumer practices an effective means of creating a more humane and just
social order?
Exam and Assignment Dates
Friday
9/12
Friday
9/19
Friday
10/3
Wednesday
10/15
CITI/COI Certification (Research Task 1)
Midterm #1
Paper #1 (Research Task 2)
Midterm #2
5 pts
60 pts
40 pts
60 pts
Friday
Monday
Monday
Interviews (Research Task 3)
Paper #2 (Research Task 4)
Final Exam
25 pts
50 pts
80 pts
11/7
11/24
12/8, 12:00
Missed Exam and Assignments:
Students may take make up exam only when a proper written explanation (e.g. doctor’s note) has been provided for
absence during original test date. Late papers lose 1/3 letter grade for each day they are late.
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Course Bibliography (Readings found on Sakai website, schedule listed by author’s last name.)
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1980. The Logic of Practice. Trans. By Richard Nice. Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 67-71.
Douglas, Mary. 2002 [1966] Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concept of Pollution and Taboo. New York: Routledge. Pp. 5171.
Eisenstein, Charles. 2011. Sacred Economics. Money, Gift, & Society in the Age of Transition. Berkeley: Evolver Editions.
(excerpts).
Fiske, John. 1994. Radical Shopping in Los Angeles: Race, Media, and Sphere of Consumption. Culture, Media and Society.
19:469-488.
Galbraith, John Kenneth. 1998 [1958]. The Affluent Society. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. Pp. 124-131.
Harris, Marvin. 1997. The Abominable Pig. In Carol Counihan and Penny Van Esterik, eds. Food and Culture, a Reader. New
York: Routledge. Pp 67-79.
Kopytoff, Igor. 1986. The Cultural Biography of Things: commoditization as process in Arjun Appadurai, ed. The Social
Life of Things: Commodities in Cultural Perspective. New York: Cambridge University Press. Pp: 64-93.
Marx, Karl. 1978 [1867] Capital, Volume One, Chapter 1: Commodities in The Marx-Engel Reader, Second Edition. New
York: W.W. Norton & Company. Pp. 302-329.
Mauss, Marcel 1990 [1925]. The Gift: The Form and Reason for Exchange in Archaic Societies. Trans. W.D. Halls. New York:
W. W. Norton & Company. Pp. 8-18.
Rappaport, Roy. 1984 [1968] Pigs for the Ancestors: Ritual in the Ecology of a New Guinea People. New Haven: Yale
University Press. pp. 1-7.
Simmel, Georg. 1997 [1903] The Philosophy of Fashion. In David Frisby and Michael Featherstone, eds. Simmel on
Culture, Selected Writings. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pp 187-206.
Veblen, Thorstein. 1967 [1899]. The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Penguin Books. Pp. 22-85
Watson, James L Transnationalism, Localization, and Fast Foods in East Asia. In James L. Watson, ed. Golden Arches East:
McDonalds in East Asia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. pp. 1-38.
Weber, Max. 1993 [1905] The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New York: Routledge. Pp. 155-183.
Worsley, Peter. 1959. Cargo Cults of Melanesia. Scientific American. Pp. 117-128.
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“ANTH 284: Culture and Consumption”
Fall 2014
Assignments: schedule of topics & readings (subject to change)
Day
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
Date
Reading
Topic
Recitation Sections
1: No section
8/20
8/22
Class Introduction
Film: The Kawelka
Monday
Wednesday
8/25
8/27
SK: Mauss, Wired-Trust Me
SK: Kopytoff
2: section goals & plans
K&M: Weismantel
Gifts
The opposite of a
commodity
Stealing fat
Friday
8/29
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
9/1
9/3
9/5
LABOR DAY
SK: Douglas
Sacred and profane
Monday
9/8
SK: Harris, Rappaport
Regulating consumption
Wednesday
9/10
K&M: Popenoe, Gross
Identity
Friday
9/12
RESEARCH CERTIFICATIONS
DUE
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
9/15
9/17
9/19
SK: Bourdieu
K&M: “Talk” “Pissed Off”
MIDTERM #1
Status, manners, tastes
Thinness
5: Midterm Review
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
9/22
9/24
9/26
SK: Marx
SK: Weber
SK: Veblen and Simmel
Commodity
Asceticism
Fashion/Conspicuous
Consumption
6: No Section
Monday
9/29
SK: Galbraith
Wednesday
Friday
10/1
10/3
Klein “No Space”
PAPER #1
Advertising and false
7: Paper #1 ideas and coaching
needs
Brands
Film: What Would Jesus
Buy?
Monday
10/6
Klein “No Choice”
Wednesday
Friday
10/8 Klein: “No Logo” 1st half
10/10
Culture jamming
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
10/13 SK: Watson
10/15 MIDTERM #2
10/17 FALL BREAK
McDonald-ization
Globalization
3: Check-in on lectures
4: Research project
introduction and Ethics
(Conflict of Interest
Certification)
(Human Subject certification)
8: Paper #2 Check in and
Midterm Review
9: No Section
5
Day
Wednesday
Friday
Topic
Recitation Sections
Change1: Anti-consumer, counter-culture (food)
10/20 Eisenstein
Sacred Economics
10: Interview piloting and
strategies
10/22 Pollan: Corn, 1-3
Industrialized Food
10/24
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
10/27 Pollan: Corn, 4-7
10/29 Pollan: Grass, 8-11
10/31
Industrialized Food
Organic
11: Lecture check in
Monday
11/3
Pollan: Grass, 9-14
Local
12: Interview write-up and
analysis coaching
Wednesday
Friday
11/5
11/7
K&M: “Indulgence” “Oil” “Lard
INTERVIEWS DUE
Local/global food
MOVIE: King Corn
Monday
Wednesday
Friday
11/10 SK: Worsely
11/12 K & M: Spam
11/14 Chin, chs. 1-2
Monday
Wednesday
11/17 Chin, ch 3-4
11/19 Chin, chs 5-conclusion
Friday
11/21
Monday
11/24 PROJECT DUE
Wednesday
Friday
11/26 THANKSGIVING
11/28 THANKSGIVING
Monday
Wednesday
12/1
12/3
SK: Fiske
Class Review and Final Prep
Monday
12/8
12:00
Final Exam
Monday
Date
Reading
Change 2: Self-determination
Cargo Cults
Self-determination
Pathological
consumption
Change 3: Rebellion
Childhood economics
Imperializing Power
Everyday injustice
13: No section
14: Paper writing strategies
FILM 3: Birth of a
Nation 4-29-92
15: Paper Wrap up and begin
Final Exam prep
Riot or revolution
16: Final exam prep
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