Week of April 27, 2009

AMST 355 Class and Culture Michael R. H. Swanson, Ph. D.

M - Th, 3:30 - 5:00 Office: CAS 110

CAS 228 Hours, T: 9:30 - 11:00

Roger Williams University MWF: 1:00 - 2:00

Spring Semester. 2009 Phone: ext 3230

E-Mail: amst355@gmail.com

Some experiences work very well as individual experiences. Some work as individual experiences, yes, but have a special impact if they are expreienced as group experiences. The reason I bring this up is that in former years I've shown a PBS Frontline documentary in class. Recently PBS has made the entire film available online as a streaming Video. It is about you, or persons of your age group less than ten years ago. Now I'm in a quandary: you can see it on your own. Would there be added value by also showing it to you as a group? The documentary is called Merchants of Cool, and it picks up where Affluenza, which we saw last Monday, left off.

What I'd like to have you do is First, View the video. It will take about one hour. Then, indicate whether it would be valuable for us to watch all or some of this together as a group, as well. Use the Option Buttons below.

Depending on the class sentiment represented in the survey, we'll either watch Escape from Affluenza Mnday or Thursday of this week. Watch for an update for Thursday if Escape from Affluenza goes on Monday's Schedule.

It seems clear that for many Americans a sense of what they can (and cannot) afford to buy influences their sense of self esteem and place in our consumption-driven society. Does it have to be this way, and does consumerism increase our sense of happiness? This class period I'll show the sequel, Escape from Affluenza. To prepare for the class take the little interactive quiz you'll find by clicking here. Record your results and bring them to class with you.