A Theory of Shopping
A Theory of Shopping

Author: Daniel Miller

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-05-31

Total Pages: 236

ISBN-13: 0745667910

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A Theory of Shopping offers a highly original perspective on one of our most basic everyday activities - shopping. We commonly assume that shopping is primarily concerned with individuals and materialism. But Miller rejects this assumption and follows the surprising route of analysing shopping by means of an analogy with anthropological studies of sacrificial ritual. He argues that the act of purchasing goods is almost always linked to other social relations, and most especially those based on love and care. The ethnographic sections of the book are based on a year's study of shopping on a street in North London. This provides the basis for a sensitive description of the issues the shopper confronts when making decisions as to what to buy. Miller develops a theory to account for these observations, arguing that shopping typically consists of three major stages which reflect the three key stages of many rites of sacrifice. In both shopping and sacrifice the ultimate intention is to constitute others as desiring subjects. Finally the book examines certain historical shifts in both subjects and objects of devotion, in particular, ideals of gender and love. This treatment of shopping from the perspective of comparative anthropology represents a highly innovative approach to one of the most familiar tasks of our daily lives. Written in a clear and accessible manner, this book will be of interest to students and academics in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, as well as anybody who wants to consider more deeply the nature of their own everyday activities.

A Theory of Shopping
A Theory of Shopping

Author: Daniel Miller

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-06-10

Total Pages: 192

ISBN-13: 0745677827

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A Theory of Shopping offers a highly original perspective on one ofour most basic everyday activities - shopping. We commonly assumethat shopping is primarily concerned with individuals andmaterialism. But Miller rejects this assumption and follows thesurprising route of analysing shopping by means of an analogy withanthropological studies of sacrificial ritual. He argues that theact of purchasing goods is almost always linked to other socialrelations, and most especially those based on love and care. The ethnographic sections of the book are based on a year's studyof shopping on a street in North London. This provides the basisfor a sensitive description of the issues the shopper confrontswhen making decisions as to what to buy. Miller develops a theoryto account for these observations, arguing that shopping typicallyconsists of three major stages which reflect the three key stagesof many rites of sacrifice. In both shopping and sacrifice theultimate intention is to constitute others as desiring subjects.Finally the book examines certain historical shifts in bothsubjects and objects of devotion, in particular, ideals of genderand love. This treatment of shopping from the perspective of comparativeanthropology represents a highly innovative approach to one of themost familiar tasks of our daily lives. Written in a clear andaccessible manner, this book will be of interest to students andacademics in anthropology, sociology and cultural studies, as wellas anybody who wants to consider more deeply the nature of theirown everyday activities.

A Theory of Grocery Shopping
A Theory of Grocery Shopping

Author: Shelley Koch

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2013-07-18

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 0857851535

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Grocery shopping is an often ignored part of the story of how food ultimately gets to our pantry shelves and tables. A Theory of Grocery Shopping explores the social organization of grocery shopping by linking the lived experience of grocery shoppers and retail managers in the US with information transmitted by nutritionists, government employees, financial advisors, journalists, health care providers and marketers, who influence the way we think about and perform the work of shopping for a household's food. The author provides insight into the contradictory messages that shape how consumers provision their households, and details how consumers respond to these messages. The book challenges the consumer choice model that places responsibility on the shopper for making the "right" choice at the grocery store, thereby ignoring the larger social forces at work, which determine what products are available and how they get to the shelves.

Still Life
Still Life

Author: Henrietta L. Moore

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-05-20

Total Pages: 175

ISBN-13: 0745637930

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How adequate are our theories of globalisation for analysing the worlds we share with others? In this provocative new book, Henrietta Moore asks us to step back and re-examine in a fresh way the interconnections normally labeled 'globalisation'. Rather than beginning with abstract processes and flows, Moore starts by analyzing the hopes, desires and satisfactions of individuals in their day-to-day lives. Drawing on a wide range of examples, from African initiation rituals to Japanese anime, from sex in virtual worlds to Schubert songs, Moore develops a theory of the ethical imagination, exploring how ideas about the human subject, and its capacities for self-making and social transformation, form a basis for reconceptualizing the role and significance of culture in a global age. She shows how the ideas of social analysts and ordinary people intertwine and diverge, and argues for an ethics of engagement based on an understanding of the human need to engage with cultural problems and seek social change. This innovative and challenging book is essential reading for anyone interested in the key debates about culture and globalization in the contemporary world.

Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl
Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl

Author: Tiqqun

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2012-06-22

Total Pages: 147

ISBN-13: 158435108X

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A theoretical dissection of capitalism's ultimate form of merchandise: the living spectacle of the Young-Girl. The Young-Girl is not always young; more and more frequently, she is not even female. She is the figure of total integration in a disintegrating social totality. —from Theory of the Young-Girl First published in France in 1999, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl dissects the impossibility of love under Empire. The Young-Girl is consumer society's total product and model citizen: whatever “type” of Young-Girl she may embody, whether by whim or concerted performance, she can only seduce by consuming. Filled with the language of French women's magazines, rooted in Proust's figure of Albertine and the amusing misery of (teenage) romance in Witold Gombrowicz's Ferdydurke, and informed by Pierre Klossowski's notion of “living currency” and libidinal economy, Preliminary Materials for a Theory of the Young-Girl diagnoses—and makes visible—a phenomenon that is so ubiquitous as to have become transparent. In the years since the book's first publication in French, the worlds of fashion, shopping, seduction plans, makeover projects, and eating disorders have moved beyond the comparatively tame domain of paper magazines into the perpetual accessibility of Internet culture. Here the Young-Girl can seek her own reflection in corporate universals and social media exchanges of “personalities” within the impersonal realm of the marketplace. Tracing consumer society's colonization of youth and sexuality through the Young-Girl's “freedom” (in magazine terms) to do whatever she wants with her body, Tiqqun exposes the rapaciously competitive and psychically ruinous landscape of modern love.

The Little Book of String Theory
The Little Book of String Theory

Author: Steven S. Gubser

Publisher: Princeton University Press

Published: 2010-02-08

Total Pages: 183

ISBN-13: 1400834430

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The essential beginner's guide to string theory The Little Book of String Theory offers a short, accessible, and entertaining introduction to one of the most talked-about areas of physics today. String theory has been called the "theory of everything." It seeks to describe all the fundamental forces of nature. It encompasses gravity and quantum mechanics in one unifying theory. But it is unproven and fraught with controversy. After reading this book, you'll be able to draw your own conclusions about string theory. Steve Gubser begins by explaining Einstein's famous equation E = mc2, quantum mechanics, and black holes. He then gives readers a crash course in string theory and the core ideas behind it. In plain English and with a minimum of mathematics, Gubser covers strings, branes, string dualities, extra dimensions, curved spacetime, quantum fluctuations, symmetry, and supersymmetry. He describes efforts to link string theory to experimental physics and uses analogies that nonscientists can understand. How does Chopin's Fantasie-Impromptu relate to quantum mechanics? What would it be like to fall into a black hole? Why is dancing a waltz similar to contemplating a string duality? Find out in the pages of this book. The Little Book of String Theory is the essential, most up-to-date beginner's guide to this elegant, multidimensional field of physics.

Store Planning/Design
Store Planning/Design

Author: Lawrence J. Israel

Publisher: Wiley

Published: 1994

Total Pages: 286

ISBN-13: 9780471594888

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Your complete guide to the evolution, revolution, theory, and style of the modern store This comprehensive reference for interior designers, students and architects- authored by one of the true trailblazers of store planning and design-provides a complete overview of the growth of the industry, decade by decade, from the ‘50s to today …full discussions of the theory and fundamental elements of store design… and numerous practical anecdotes drawn from the author’s vast experience. You’ll find … Fully illustrated analysis of the most important store designs of the past five decades, focusing on merchandising, visual merchandising, fixturization, planning, design, lighting, and color and materials Planning and design theory and elements covering all the components of this multidisciplinary professional practice from design strategies and programs through architecture to graphics and more Insights into the design process culled from the author’s experience covering the full range of professional challenges Overviews of historic, cultural, socioeconomic, and demographic influences on store design Definitions of store planning terminology and a complete bibliography For all those involved in designing and planning the stores of tomorrow, this book is sure to prove a great inspiration and practical help in the search for new, innovative, and effective environments in which to present and sell merchandise.

Theory and Reality
Theory and Reality

Author: Peter Godfrey-Smith

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2021-07-16

Total Pages: 412

ISBN-13: 022677113X

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How does science work? Does it tell us what the world is “really” like? What makes it different from other ways of understanding the universe? In Theory and Reality, Peter Godfrey-Smith addresses these questions by taking the reader on a grand tour of more than a hundred years of debate about science. The result is a completely accessible introduction to the main themes of the philosophy of science. Examples and asides engage the beginning student, a glossary of terms explains key concepts, and suggestions for further reading are included at the end of each chapter. Like no other text in this field, Theory and Reality combines a survey of recent history of the philosophy of science with current key debates that any beginning scholar or critical reader can follow. The second edition is thoroughly updated and expanded by the author with a new chapter on truth, simplicity, and models in science.

The Subject of Anthropology
The Subject of Anthropology

Author: Henrietta L. Moore

Publisher: John Wiley & Sons

Published: 2013-04-23

Total Pages: 304

ISBN-13: 0745638171

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In this ambitious new book, Henrietta Moore draws on anthropology, feminism and psychoanalysis to develop an original and provocative theory of gender and of how we become sexed beings. Arguing that the Oedipus complex is no longer the fulcrum of debate between anthropology and psychoanalysis, she demonstrates how recent theorizing on subjectivity, agency and culture has opened up new possibilities for rethinking the relationship between gender, sexuality and symbolism. Using detailed ethnographic material from Africa and Melanesia to explore the strengths and weaknesses of a range of theories in anthropology, feminism and psychoanalysis, Moore advocates an ethics of engagement based on a detailed understanding of the differences and similarities in the ways in which local communities and western scholars have imaginatively deployed the power of sexual difference. She demonstrates the importance of ethnographic listening, of focused attention to people’s imaginations, and of how this illuminates different facets of complex theoretical issues and human conundrums. Written not just for professional scholars and for students but for anyone with a serious interest in how gender and sexuality are conceptualized and experienced, this book is the most powerful and persuasive assessment to date of what anthropology has to contribute to these debates now and in the future.