MACMILLAN Aesthetico-Cultural Cosmopolitanism and French Youth: The Taste of the World (Consumption and Public Life)

By examining cultural consumption, tastes and imaginaries as a means of relating to the world, this book describes the effects of globalization on young people from an aesthetic and cultural perspective. It employs the concept of aesthetico-cultural cosmopolitanism to analyse the emergence of an aesthetic openness to alterity as a new generational "good taste". Aesthetico-Cultural Cosmopolitanism and French Youth critically examines the consumption of cultural products and imaginaries that provide genuine insight into social change, particularly in regards to young people, who play the largest role in cultural circulation. This book will be of interest to students and academics across a wide range of readers, including cultural theorists, and students engaged in debates on cultural consumption, the globalization of culture and transnational aesthetic codes. Review The book adds new empirical evidence highly relevant to interpretations and arguments about cosmopolitanism. … The authors’ work is perhaps the most rejuvenating research on a topic that has been extensively studied over the last two decades– almost to the point of becoming trivialized. Their ongoing empirical and theoretical efforts might help shape the intellectual contours of future work on global, cosmopolitan and transnational studies. (Victor Roudometof, Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus, Nicosia, Cyprus) “This excellent book brings together original ideas about globalization and cosmopolitanism in a rich empirical study of the consumption practices of French youth. Because it brings together the sociology of culture with the anthropology of globalization, it will be of great interest to all those who care about the future of transnational cultural practices.” (Arjun Appadurai, New York University, USA) “The authors offer the reader an original and innovative analysis of contemporary global cultural tastes and passions. The fivefold configuration models proposed in this book will undoubtedly become a template to which forthcoming studies will have to confront themselves.” (Stéphane Dufoix, University Paris Nanterre, France) “Based on an innovative survey revealing young adults’ cultural preferences, this book sheds unexpected light on contemporary forms of appropriation in a world now structured by the international circulation of symbolic goods.” (Jean-Louis Fabiani, Central European University, Hungary) From the Back Cover By examining cultural consumption, tastes and imaginaries as a means of relating to the world, this book describes the effects of globalization on young people from an aesthetic and cultural perspective. It employs the concept of aesthetic-cultural cosmopolitanism to analyse the emergence of an aesthetic openness to alterity as a new generational ‘good taste’. Aesthetico-Cultural Cosmopolitanism and French Youth critically examines the consumption of cultural products and imaginaries that provides genuine insight into social change, particularly in regard to young people who play the largest role in cultural circulation. This book will be of interest to a wide range of readers, including cultural theorists and students engaged in debates on cultural consumption, the globalization of culture and transnational aesthetic codes. About the Author Vincenzo Cicchelli is an Associate Professor at the Université Paris Descartes, France and a Research Fellow at GEMASS (CNRS/Paris-Sorbonne), France.Sylvie Octobre is a Researcher at the Département des études, de la prospective et des statistiques (DEPS) of the French Ministry of Culture, and an Associate Research Fellow at GEMASS (CNRS/Paris-Sorbonne), France.