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Taste and Lifestyle

Taste and Lifestyle: Laurie Taylor explores the way in which consumer culture remade the the tastes of an emerging middle class and hears about the West Indian front room.

Taste and Lifestyle: Laurie Taylor talks to Ben Highmore, Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex, whose latest study explores the ways in which consumer culture remade the tastes of an emerging middle class – from pine kitchen tables to Mediterranean cuisine. Did this world of symbolic goods create new feelings and attitudes?

Also, Michael McMillan, Associate Lecturer for Cultural and Historical Studies at the London College of Fashion, discusses the migrant experience of African-Caribbean families setting up home in the UK in the mid-20th century. How did the artefacts and objects which dressed the West Indian front room provide an outlet for feelings of displacement and alienation in a society where they weren't always made to feel 'at home'?

Producer: Jayne Egerton

Available now

29 minutes

Last on

Mon 15 May 2023 00:15

Guests and Further Reading

Professor of Cultural Studies at the University of Sussex

Lifestyle Revolution: How Taste Changed Class in Late 20th-Century Britain (Manchester University Press)

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,ÌýÌýAssociate Lecturer for Cultural and Historical Studies at the London College of Fashion

The Front Room:ÌýDiaspora Migrant Aesthetics in the 91Èȱ¬ (Lund Humphries Publishers Ltd)

Broadcasts

  • Wed 10 May 2023 16:00
  • Mon 15 May 2023 00:15

Explore further with The Open University

91Èȱ¬ Thinking Allowed is produced in partnership with The Open University

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