CONTENTS 
PART TWO 
MACRO ASPECTS OF MARKETING 
4 
Postmodern Perspectives on Consumption 
A. Fuat Firat and Alladi Venkatesh 
Introduction 
Modernity and Postmodernity—Some Preliminary Issues 
Capitalism, Consumption, and Production 
The System of Consumption under Modernity 
The Growth of the Mass Consumer Market 
Gender and Consumption 
Critique of Modernity, Critical Theory (Frankfurt 
School), and the Beginnings of Late Modernism 
From a General Critique of Culture to a Postmodern 
Critique of Consumer Culture 
Consumption under Postmodernity 
Hyperreality 
Fragmentation 
Reversals of Consumption and Production 
Decentering of the Subject 
Juxtaposition of Opposites 
The Role of Marketing in Postmodern Consumption 
Conclusions 
COMMENTARY 
The (Un)(ma)King? of the Postmodern Consumer 
Ahmet Suerdem 
COMMENTARY 
The Return of Superfluousness and Utility, and 
Consumption in the Postmodern Culture: A Comment 
on “Postmodern Perspectives on Consumption” 
Dominique Bouchet 
The Importance of Social Imaginary 
A Significant Debate 
Autonomy and Growth 
Gendered Production and Consumption 
Characterizing Postmodernity 
Economy: A Cultural Institution 
The Paradox of Postmodernity and Beyond 
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