Why am I passionate about this?
As an academic my work is in the area of political theory and my interest in ‘luxury’ came from the awareness that it involved questions of history (why was it seen as a threat to the Roman republic) and socio-political issues around inequality and consumerism. I was awarded a grant to start the investigation and my university (Glasgow) published it along with other awards and it got picked up by the media with the consequence I had my ‘ten minutes of fame’ as I was interviewed by newspapers and on the radio. My book is the eventual fruit of that study which has, in the words of more than one author, been judged ‘seminal’.
Christopher's book list on answering the question, what is ‘luxury’?
Why did Christopher love this book?
As its editors explain this collection of ten essays in its diverse ways aims to criticise the contemporary luxury industry. What I found valuable are the ways it challenges the assumptions of much of the literature which simply takes as given the roles luxury places in production, distribution, and especially consumption without challenging them for their wider impact. For anyone who is sceptical of those roles for encouraging waste, entrenching inequality, glorifying private indulgence and so on then this is a ‘must read’. The editors in their contribution directly engage with my argument.
1 author picked Critical Luxury Studies as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Assembling the foremost scholars in this innovative, distinctive and expanding subject, internationally well-known critical theorists John Armitage and Joanne Roberts present a ground-breaking aesthetic, design-led and media-related examination of the relations between historical and, crucially, contemporary ideas of luxury. Critical Luxury Studies offers a technoculturally inspired survey of the mediated arts and design, as well as a means of comprehending the socio-economic order with novel philosophical tools and critical methods of interrogation that are re-defining the concept of luxury in the 21st century.
- Coming soon!