Critical Luxury Studies: Art, Design, Media

(Paperback)

Publishing Details

Classifications

Physical Properties

Description

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.

Reviews

A collection of extremely high quality papers, which is interesting and provocative throughout, and exemplary in its commitment to the inter-disciplinary study of everything luxurious. -- Mark Featherstone, Keele University * Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption *
A collection of extremely high quality papers, which is interesting and provocative throughout, and exemplary in its commitment to the inter-disciplinary study of everything luxurious. -- Mark Featherstone, Keele University * Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption *
Taking its lead from an innovative combination of social, philosophical, linguistic and aesthetic theories, this important book demolishes the myths of contemporary luxury-brand marketing. Goods from mens wrist-watches to highly priced designer T-shirts will never appear the same. The book encourages the reader to take their own critical look at the contemporary landscape of globalised consumption. -- Peter McNeil, University of Technology Sydney and Aalto University
Armitage and Roberts offer a careful philosophical examination of luxury, enhanced by an exemplary series of case studies. In assembling this broad range of insightful contributions and through their own nuanced analysis, the authors make a timely contribution to the study of luxury as a cultural phenomenon. -- Peter Oakley, Royal College of Art

Author Bio

John Armitage is Professor of Media Arts and Co-Director of the Winchester Luxury Research Group at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, United Kingdom. Johns research interests include luxury and visual culture, new media art, continental philosophy, and the critical theory of technology. He is the founder and co-editor of the Duke University Press journal Cultural Politics. Joanne Roberts is Professor in Arts and Cultural Management and Director of the Winchester Luxury Research Group at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, United Kingdom. Her research interests include knowledge, innovation, creativity, and luxury. Her latest book is A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Knowledge Management (Sage Publications, 2015). She is an Editorial Advisory Board member of Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption (Taylor & Francis).