The curator, the investor, and the dupe
Consumer desire and Chinese Cultural Revolution memorabilia
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2391092 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Laurence Coderre (New York University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2016 |
| Volume | 21 |
| Issue | 4 |
| Pages | 429-447 |
| Publication date | 2016-12-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Material Culture (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1359-1835 • E-ISSN: 1460-3586 |
| Publisher | SAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1177/1359183516662297 |
| OpenAlex | W2498996930 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 36 |
This article examines the discourse surrounding the collection of Cultural Revolution memorabilia in the contemporary People's Republic of China. The author focuses on the emergence of three key discursive figures: the collector/curator, the collector/investor, and the collector as dupe. At issue in the construction of each of these figures is the unsettling force of consumer desire, its ethics and negotiation. In the case of the curator and investor, the author considers the mechanisms through which consumer desire is decentered in the name of historical responsibility and exchange value, respectively. These mechanisms of deferral are contrasted to the often nostalgic desire embodied by the dupe, but this figure and his or her consumer desire are in fact crucial to the discourse of collection as a whole. Indeed, despite claims to the contrary, the dupe bespeaks an enduring quest for a mode of interaction between person and thing outside the bounds of commodity exchange
Aesthetics · China · Commodity · Economics · Embodied cognition · Epistemology · Mode (computer interface · Negotiation · Political science · Social science · Sociology · Value (mathematics · Art, Politics, and Modernism · Asian Culture and Media Studies · Japanese History and Culture · Law · Philosophy
Marxism and literature
In the Red
Common Places
On Longing
Tourists of History
From Stigma to Cult
Sentimental Figures of Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain and France
Seeds of Fire
Communism Unwrapped
Postsocialism
China's Cultural Revolution, 1966-69
Consuming China
Shades of Mao
Remaking the East German Past
The Economics of Information
Altering States
Postsocialist Modernity
What Price History? Functions of Narrative in Television Collectibles Shows
Narratives of Value and the Antiques Roadshow
From Culture Industry to Mao Industry
From Landlord Manor to Red Memorabilia
Museum representations of Maoist China
Compromising with Consumerism in Socialist China
Collecting Communism
Media Markets, Mediating Labors, and the Branding of East German Culture at Super Illu
The Taste Remains
(N)Ostalgie' for the present
Goods and States
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,5 |
| Citation span | 2020 - 2023 (4) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |