In this interview, Martin Jay discusses the relation between consumption and his work in intellectual history. Beginning with some personal reflections on his own relation to consumer society, Jay proceeds to discuss the influence of the emergence of the department store on French intellectual thought, the scopic regimes of shopping malls, the ambivalent relation of the Frankfurt School to consumption, alternatives to the Marxists’ valorization of production and the commodification of experience. In addition, he draws on the work of Walter Benjamin to suggest new approaches to the study of consumption. He concludes by discussing the advantages and drawbacks to a theoretical approach to consumption.
Jay, Martin
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2.
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