Consumer Behavior Theory I

MAN 634 treats consumption as a cultural and psychological phenomenon rather than a checklist of buying behaviors, drawing on sociology, semiotics, and phenomenology to ask why people want what they want and what goods mean to them. You'll work through dense theoretical readings (Bocock, Miller, Douglas, Slater) across interactionist, structuralist, and poststructuralist traditions, with midterms, a final, and a scholarly paper applying these frameworks to a current consumer phenomenon. As a graduate-level marketing course, it grounds the Consumer Culture Theory tradition that later empirical CB and branding seminars build on.