Consuming Youth: Vampires, Cyborgs, and the Culture of Consumption (Paperback)

by Robert Latham (Author) "In my introduction I focused principally on the political-economic implications of Marx's metaphor of the vampire-cyborg: how it allows a critique of the capitalist factory..." (more)
Key Phrases: yuppie vampire, consumer vampirism, new consumption classes, Silicon Valley, Pretty Boy, Rice's Interview (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review
"Consuming Youth is a near-encyclopedic work. Latham's nuanced readings connect vampires, with their associations of exploitation, blood-sucking, and undead existence, to cyborgs, who like vampires deconstruct the normal behaviors of the autonomous subject through the joining of human and machine. This important book will make a valuable contribution to cultural studies, contemporary literary theory, and neo-Marxist criticism in general."-N. Katherine Hayles, author of How We Became Posthuman (N. Katherine Hayles, author of How We Became Posthuman )

"The value Latham's study provides . . . lies in his resolutely rational voice in a field that often provokes hysteria, and his insistence on placing these over-theorized . . . icons of popular culture in a social and economic context. . . . Vampires and cyborgs, the undead and the human machine, are not as far apart as their temporal locations in Gothic past and Science Fiction future might indicate. They share the same logic: figures who consume, serially offered up for our eager consumption."-Catherine Spooner, MLR (Catherine Spooner MLR ) --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Description

From the novels of Anne Rice to The Lost Boys, from The Terminator to cyberpunk science fiction, vampires and cyborgs have become strikingly visible figures within American popular culture, especially youth culture. In Consuming Youth, Rob Latham explains why, showing how fiction, film, and other media deploy these ambiguous monsters to embody and work through the implications of a capitalist system in which youth both consume and are consumed.

Inspired by Marx's use of the cyborg vampire as a metaphor for the objectification of physical labor in the factory, Latham shows how contemporary images of vampires and cyborgs illuminate the contradictory processes of empowerment and exploitation that characterize the youth-consumer system. While the vampire is a voracious consumer driven by a hunger for perpetual youth, the cyborg has incorporated the machineries of consumption into its own flesh. Powerful fusions of technology and desire, these paired images symbolize the forms of labor and leisure that American society has staked out for contemporary youth.

A startling look at youth in our time, Consuming Youth will interest anyone concerned with film, television, and popular culture.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 336 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (May 15, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226468925
• ISBN-13: 978-0226468921
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.1 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,027,881 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Cultural Logic of the Hunger in the Shadow of Marx, April 13, 2002

By A Customer

Despite the first impression one might have about its contents, this book consists of some serious (but fun!) neo-Marxist critiques of consumption (and how it can make us all "eternally young). This is accomplished by positioning the image of the cyborg and the vampire as primary metaphors in the processes of exchange in this postmodern world. If you liked The Lost Boys or The Hunger, have read Anne Rice or Poppy Z. Brite, and are not opposed to a little critical theory, this book offers a striking reappraisal of vampiric and cyborg imagery and how it is diffused in the popular media.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Confusing yet intriguing, March 17, 2008

By	K. Brough - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Once you get past the introduction which is filled with confusing and advanced terminology the book actually becomes relevant to how our society functions today. Although probably intended for communication scholars, the book would have been more appealing if the language was dumbed down a bit. Latham makes some interesting connects between consumerism and vampires and cyborgs, but again its easy to get lost in the language.