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Events
Jun. 30 | 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Bode-Pearson Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies due
Jun. 30 | 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize
Nominations for the 2012 Mary C. Turpie Prize for Outstanding Contributions to American Studies Teaching, Advising, and Program Development due
Oct. 1 | Travel Grants for Graduate Students
For submission guidelines, click here
Resources: Abstracts of American Studies Dissertations
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Yount, Sylvia L. "'Give the People What They Want': The American Aesthetic Movement, Art Worlds, and Consumer Culture, 1876-1890," American Studies Program, University of Pennsylvania, August 1995.
This dissertation examines the cultural politics of the American Aesthetic movement in terms of increasing professionalization of the New York art world and the expanding consumer marketplace. Revealing the relationships between design, social reform, and consumption through an analysis of ‘fine’ and ‘popular’ visual and textual materials, the study explores the layered meanings of Aestheticism as a progressive and nostalgic impulse that both critiqued and reinforced the dominant social order. By understanding consumption as a rich cultural enterprise central to the dual processes of class identity and lifestyle formation, the author argues that American Aestheticism’s particular language of reform made it readily adaptable to the nascent consumer ethos, a development that not only generated widespread popularity but, ultimately, decline.
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