Landscapes of consumption, landscapes of memory: The rhetoric of modern urban consumption

Modernity confronts us with serious problems of identity, problems we face with rhetorical resources. The urban experience shatters and fragments the body, dispersing the subject. Urban sites offer memory in response, providing the possibility of a (re)unified identity. We utilize memory in an attempt to "place" ourselves within culture. This dissertation argues that urban landscapes of consumption invoke memories providing powerful justifications for consumption, covering cultural instability characteristic of the twentieth-century with the stability of warmly remembered pasts, and establishing persuasive structures for personal identity.;The rhetorical tradition provides the theoretical starting point for examining contemporary landscapes. Classical rhetorical handbooks suggested using architectural mnemonic devices. Other theorists argued that images of the gods reside in individuals' memories. Architects and artists in the Renaissance, following the rules of rhetorically trained memories, constructed places like gardens, theaters, and cities as memory places, encouraging recollection of the divine order.;Similarly, contemporary landscapes of consumption are landscapes of memory. These landscapes, both as paradigmatic contemporary spaces and as landscapes of memory, provide fruitful "starting places" for a rhetorical investigation of space. I focus on two Los Angeles landscapes, Bullocks Wilshire built in the late 1920s and (re)built Old Pasadena, redeveloped from the 1980s to the present, Bullocks Wilshire and Old Pasadena draw on memories in attempts to authenticate both their own particular achievements and the identities of those who visit them. Bullocks Wilshire, as a "cathedral to commerce" draws on the power of the cathedral to sanctify consumption. Old Pasadena nostalgically invokes Main Street America, arguing for unifying tradition within a fragmented moment. These landscapes are "places" where the plaintive claims of consumption, the authenticating voices of memory and the practice of everyday life intermingle.;Chapter One provides an overview of consumer culture and a theory for critically analyzing space. Chapter Two discusses memory both in classical rhetorical theory and as a constitutive problem of modernity. Chapters Three and Four focus on Bullocks Wilshire and Old Pasadena. Chapter Five details the implications of the study.