Keywords: a Vocabulary of Culture and Society

Postmodernism, or, the Cultural Logic of Late Capitalism

Culture and Imperialism

The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act

Scientific objectivity is neither monolithic nor immutable: our current usage is compounded of several meanings - metaphysical, methodological and moral - and each meaning has a distinct history, as well as a history of fusion within what now counts as a single concept of `objectivity'. The rise of aperspectival history in nineteenth-century science is one strand of this plaited history of objectivity, as embodied in scientific ideals and practices. It is conceptually and historically distinct from the ontological aspect of objectivity that pursues the ultimate structure of reality, and from the mechanical aspect of objectivity that forbids interpretation in reporting and picturing scientific results. Whereas ontological objectivity is about the fit between theory and the world, and mechanical objectivity is about suppressing the universal human propensity to judge and aestheticize, aperspectival objectivity is about eliminating individual (or occasionally group) idiosyncracies. It emerged first in the mo...

Objectivity and the escape from perspective

The author suggests that whereas bourgeois subjectivity ordinarily resembles the central and progressively developing self of such novels as David Copperfield, working class subjectivity consists of attention to working environment and community that diminishes the concern with self. These differences account for the relative valuations placed on middle class and working class autobiographies by the literary establishment.

Subjectivities: A History of Self-Representation in Britain, 1832-1920

Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public

What is the relationship between our conception of humans as producers or creators; as consumers of taste and pleasure; and as creators of value? Combining cultural history, economics, and literary criticism, Regenia Gagnier's new work traces the parallel development of economic and aesthetic theory, offering a shrewd reading of humans as workers and wanters, born of labor and desire. "The Insatiability of Human Wants" begins during a key transitional moment in aesthetic and economic theory, 1871, when both disciplines underwent a turn from production to consumption models. In economics, an emphasis on the theory of value and the social relations between land, labor, and capital gave way to more individualistic models of consumerism. Similarly, in aesthetics, theories of artistic production or creativity soon bowed to models of taste, pleasure, and reception. Using these developments as a point of departure, Gagnier deftly traces the shift in Western thought from models of production to consumption. From its exploration of early market logic and Kantian thought to its look at the aestheticization of homelessness and our own market boom, "The Insatiability of Human Wants" invites us to contemplate alternative interpretations of economics, aesthetics, and history itself.

The Insatiability of Human Wants: Economics and Aesthetics in Market Society

Idylls of the Marketplace; Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public

What is the relationship between our conception of humans as producers or creators; as consumers of taste and pleasure; and as creators of value? Combining cultural history, economics, and literary criticism, Regenia Gagnier's new work traces the parallel development of economic and aesthetic theory, offering a shrewd reading of humans as workers and wanters, born of labor and desire. The Insatiability of Human Wants begins during a key transitional moment in aesthetic and economic theory, 1871, when both disciplines underwent a turn from production to consumption models. In economics, an emphasis on the theory of value and the social relations between land, labor, and capital gave way to more individualistic models of consumerism. Similarly, in aesthetics, theories of artistic production or creativity soon bowed to models of taste, pleasure, and reception. Using these developments as a point of departure, Gagnier deftly traces the shift in Western thought from models of production to consumption. From its exploration of early market logic and Kantian thought to its look at the aestheticization of homelessness and our own market boom, The Insatiability of Human Wants invites us to contemplate alternative interpretations of economics, aesthetics, and history itself.

Regenia Gagnier

Papers

Subjectivities: A History of Self-Representation in Britain, 1832-1920

Idylls of the Marketplace: Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public

The Insatiability of Human Wants: Economics and Aesthetics in Market Society

Idylls of the Marketplace; Oscar Wilde and the Victorian Public

The insatiability of human wants