The Contradictions of Culture

Elizabeth Wilson explores the contradictory nature of cultural relations through an examination of fashion, feminism, consumer culture, representation and postmodernism. Debates within feminism on the nature and effects of pornography are used to illustrate a particular kind of cultural contradiction.

In this book, one of the most accomplished and thoughtful cultural commentators of the day, considers the contradictory nature of cultural relations. Elizabeth Wilson explores these themes through an examination of fashion, feminism, consumer culture, representation and postmodernism. Debates within feminism on the nature and effects of pornography are used to illustrate a particular kind of cultural contradiction. Wilson recognizes that postmodernism permitted the reappropriation of subjects that were not previously considered worthy of attention, or opposed to the idea of emancipation, chief among these was fashion. She shows that the association of an interest in this culturally significant subject with a revisionist project raises doubts about the coherence of postmodernism itself.

PART ONE
Introduction
Incoherent Feminism
The 1990s
The Unbearable Lightness of Diana
Feminist Fundamentalism
These New Components of the Spectacle
Fashion and Postmodernism
PART TWO
The Sphinx in the City Reconsidered
The Invisible <i>>Afterward
The Invisible Fl[ci]aneur
Looking Backward
Urban Nostalgia
Writing the Romance of the Suburbs
A Review of Literature
Living Dolls
Bricolage City
Myths of Brighton
Dogs in Space
Notes on the Erotic City
Against Utopia
The Romance of Indeterminate Spaces