Shopping: Material Culture Perspectives was published in Fall, 2014, by the University of Delaware Press. The volume was edited by Deborah Andrews, the former Director of the Center for Material Culture Studies.
The themes explored in this volume are based on the Fall, 2011, iteration of the Material Culture Studies course MCST299, “Research in Material Culture Studies: The Architecture of Shopping.” This class was open to the public and all lectures were recorded. These lectures, which are often a version of the chapters found in “Shopping: Material Culture Perspectives” can be accessed here.
The essays in this volume—authored by historians with varied specialties, an anthropologist, an environmental journalist, a geographer and urban planner, and practicing artists—demonstrate how a material culture perspective on shopping yields insights into multiple aspects of American culture.
Contents:
| Sandy Isenstadt | The Spaces of Shopping: A Historical Overview |
| Susan Strasser | Woolworth to Walmart: Mass Merchandising and the Changing Culture of Consumption |
| David Ames | Shopping Malls: Machines for Selling |
| Lance Winn | Passages: From Arcade to Virtual Arcadia |
| Anne Krulikowski | The Shop Around the Corner: Change, Continuity, and the Independent Neighborhood Grocer |
| J. Ritchie Garrison | Farmers’ Markets, Food, and the Architecture of Control |
| Jay Gitlin | Living in a Bubble in the 1950s: The Material Culture of Effervescence |
| McKay Jenkins | A Toxic Safari in a Big Box Store |
| Helen Sheumaker | Secondhand Learning: Using Secondhand Consumerism in the Classroom |
| Gretchen Herrmann with Martha Rosler | In Conversation: Community, Women, and Work in the American Garage Sale |