Wendy A. Woloson, "Crap: A History of Cheap Stuff in America" (U Chicago Press, 2020)
New Books in Critical Theory
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The History of the Gift Shop
I was really intrigued by the idea of gifts being authentic, despite being mass produced and obviously crap. How does crap get that status, I guess, when it's a gift? When we're talking about gift shops, the thing I was trying to figure out there was, they're knickknacks. If you have them in your home or give them to other people, it signals a particular kind of sensibility is what I argue in the book. That's how nostalgia works. It's a longing for a past that never existed.
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