This talk explores luxury as one way that hierarchy, social distance, and subordination are felt affectively by bodies in consumption-oriented societies. The project seeks to upend a tradition of social thought that interprets luxury consumption as an other-directed, visually-mediated, and easily-subverted “language” of hierarchy and class. Professor Mathiowetz is a political theorist and the author of Appeals to Interest: Language, Contestation, and Political Agency (Penn State, 2011).

Dean Mathiowetz is Associate Professor of Politics at UCSC.

Sponsored by the Center for Cultural Studies with staff support provided by the Institute for Humanities Research, UCSC.