ThoughtGallery.org > My Life with Things: Elizabeth Chin in Conversation with Arlene Davila

My Life with Things: Elizabeth Chin in Conversation with Arlene Davila

My Life with Things is an autoethnography, a wide open attempt to look at contemporary consumption—mine—in its messy realness. As a woman of color, a feminist, and a political economist I was spurred to take this approach because so much of the scholarly work on consumption seems to exempt us from being implicated in those processes we seek to critique. Much as I can decry global structures of inequality, I still buy those $1.50 socks at Target. The writing, for its part, pounds away at the boundaries traditional academic genres by incorporating surreal imaginings, diary entries, and probing into the minutiae of Karl Marx’s own consumer life. As the daughter of a “real” writer, I have to admit that the writing matters mightily to me. With the classic volume Writing Culture reaching its 30th anniversary, I cannot help but reflect on the ways in which my being a “Writing Culture baby” has shaped my own approach to writing, and the making of My Life With Things.











When: Mon., Sep. 26, 2016 at 6:30 pm
Where: Graduate Center, CUNY
365 Fifth Ave.
212-817-7000
Price: Free
Buy tickets/get more info now
See other events in these categories:

My Life with Things is an autoethnography, a wide open attempt to look at contemporary consumption—mine—in its messy realness. As a woman of color, a feminist, and a political economist I was spurred to take this approach because so much of the scholarly work on consumption seems to exempt us from being implicated in those processes we seek to critique. Much as I can decry global structures of inequality, I still buy those $1.50 socks at Target. The writing, for its part, pounds away at the boundaries traditional academic genres by incorporating surreal imaginings, diary entries, and probing into the minutiae of Karl Marx’s own consumer life. As the daughter of a “real” writer, I have to admit that the writing matters mightily to me. With the classic volume Writing Culture reaching its 30th anniversary, I cannot help but reflect on the ways in which my being a “Writing Culture baby” has shaped my own approach to writing, and the making of My Life With Things.

Buy tickets/get more info now