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xtruss · 2 years

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The Fascinating History of Shopping and Its Influence on How We Buy Stuff Today

From pop-ups to fast fashion to same-day delivery, every retail innovation is reminiscent of one that came before.

— Saturday March 19, 2022 | Fast Company | By Rachel Bowlby

Source Photos: Sainsbury Archive and Rawpixel

It’s a sunny, spring Saturday morning in early 2019, and I’m having coffee in Brentwood, England, a small Essex town where I’ve never been before. I have a couple of hours to spare, so I’m planning to wander around and have a look in the shops. Then my phone pings: “Surprise!” It’s a promotion from M&S. “Here’s 20% off when you shop online.”

The Brentwood branch of M&S is just a couple of doors down from where I am. But the notification isn’t suggesting I go there. On the contrary, this special offer will deter me from shopping in an actual shop, on an actual high street, where I know I’d now be paying 25% more than if I bought online. It is, in effect, a counter-advertisement—taking me away from the shops and toward a virtual, online-only future.

Around this time, M&S had been closing stores in numerous locations. Many of these shops had been there for as long as people could remember, and were part of the towns’ identity. Like “our” NHS, and unlike most other commercial brands, M&S evokes a feeling of belonging to a shared history.

Looking back, my little counter-epiphany now seems to encapsulate something of the fraught shopping mood of three years ago. The incident felt like a painful sign of the contradictory state of British retail—and especially that part of it that is commonly known as the high street.

The choice on offer was absurd for both the customers (only one rational way to go), and the company (why push customers away from the stores that are still in use?). But it was somehow feasible then, in those innocent pre-pandemic times, to take for granted the inevitable triumph of online retail, even if it brought with it the destruction of most other modes of buying and selling.

From Street Peddlers To Supermarkets

Online shopping seemed to be the next and natural step along the path that began with the introduction of self-service. I started charting these developments more than 20 years ago when I wrote, Carried Away: The Invention of Modern Shopping. And a year after the sad Brentwood episode, at the start of 2020, I was coming to the end of writing my new book, Back to the Shops: The High Street in History and the Future. This investigates the different stages of shopping, from its early beginnings to the present.

This history stretches back to peddlers and weekly markets and runs through small fixed shops in towns and villages to the grand “destination” city department stores of the last part of the 19th century. Then, in the later 20th century, came self-service, to be followed in recent years by the move online.

But shopping history never moves in one single direction or all at once. There have always been regional and chronological divergences from mainstream developments. There are also retailing modes that fall by the wayside and then return at a later date in new guises or with new names. They often have every appearance of being newly invented.

Take fast fashion, for instance. We think of fast fashion as inseparable from a contemporary culture of rapid turnover. But a version of it can be found as far back as the 18th century, well before garments were mass-produced in factories. Clothes at this time were all sewn by hand.

In late 18th century London, a new type of shop appeared where, for a price, a lady or gentleman could commission a customized outfit that would be made up for them overnight. It offered an instant transformation into the style and class of the best social circles. But unlike modern fast fashion, it wasn’t cheap, and the clothes weren’t flimsy or soon discarded.

The same period also saw the arrival of short-term shops, not unlike those that we now call pop-ups. They might appear in any village, when an itinerant salesman rented a room in the local pub as a temporary location for what he’d present as a flash sale: “now or never.” In the 1760s, for example, Thomas Turner, who kept the main shop in the small Sussex village of East Hoathly, complained in his diary about just such a character zooming into the area—and taking away attention, and trade, from his own steady service.

Mail-order shopping also has a rich history that seems to anticipate later developments. Catalogue companies, like Freeman’s or Kay’s, were massively popular in the middle of the 20th century. But despite its popularity, “the book” (the affectionate name for the big, “full color” catalogue) never posed a threat to the shops. Nevertheless, mail order was a form of virtual shopping at a distance, and now looks like a striking precursor to online shopping.

Perhaps the most surprising example of an early retail development whose beginnings have now disappeared from view, is the chain store. We tend to think of chain stores as having pushed independent shops out of the way in the late 20th century, with the result that every shopping mall and every High Street (if it survives at all) looks like all the rest. But, in fact, chain stores were everywhere a century earlier, including some of the names that are still well-known today.

Chains took off in the second half of the 19th century. Of the early grocery chains (or “multiples,” as they were then called), only the Co-op remains. The Co-op no longer maintains the cultural and trading preeminence it had from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century. But unlike the other dominant chains of that era, it has endured. It even pioneered the move to self-service in the middle of the 20th century, and it remains a significant player among the biggest supermarket chains of today.

WHSmith, the newsagent and bookseller, developed from the late 1840s alongside the growing railway network. There was soon a stall to be seen inside every station of any size, providing the passenger with novels or newspapers for their journey. In 1900, there were no fewer than 800 branches nationwide. From the beginning of the 20th century, Smith’s also had outlets on town shopping streets.

Boots the chemist was another 19th century chain that is still a standard High Street presence. The first Boots shop opened in Nottingham in 1849. By the turn of the century, there were around 250 branches—and 1,000 by the early 1930s.

Numerous small and large chains, selling many types of commodity, faded away, died, or were taken over. But the striking point is that chain store Britain is nothing new. It dates back well over a century.

The Self-Service Revolution

If online retail was the new feature of early 21st century shopping, self-service was the shopping revolution of the 20th century.

Self-service reached Europe after the Second World War. In the U.S., it had been an accidental invention of the Great Depression, when abandoned factories and warehouses were turned into makeshift, cut-price outlets. Customers picked out goods as they walked around and paid for everything at the end. By the 1940s, this new type of store was well established, often in regional chains, as the “super market.” Postwar, this new American mode of retail operation was exported to the rest of the world.

Information leaflet from 1950s describes how to use a supermarket. Photo: Sainsbury Archive

Promoted as a modern, efficient way to shop, self-service entailed both a different type of store layout and new norms of customer and shop-worker behavior. Before this, every purchase was asked for over the counter, item by item, and the assistant “served” the customer personally. Few goods were packaged, so every order was literally customized: measured or weighed and then wrapped.

But self-service did away with all this. There was no need for counter service if customers were making their own selections. All available goods were put out on display, within reach. No need to ask someone to fetch them. And there was no one else waiting behind you for their turn to be served. You could take your time, look around, or get it done at speed. It was your choice.

This was a newly impersonal shopping environment. The customer was in control of the pace and the selection, but they were on their own and there was no longer someone standing there to serve them. For shop workers, meanwhile, the abolition of counter service meant that their various skills, including their people skills, were made redundant. So too was their often detailed knowledge of the products they sold.

When the customer did encounter a person across a counter, it was not to ask for advice about what to buy; it was simply to pay and get out. Nor was the checkout for chatting. Like factory workers, cashiers had to keep up to speed.

The whole process was meant to be more efficient, a saving of time and money for businesses and customers alike. The customer, notably, was seen now as someone for whom time was a finite and valuable resource. In this way, the shift to self-service perfectly matched with some large social changes of the postwar decades.

As late as the 1960s, for example, “housewife” was the default designation for women over the age of 16 (even though many had part- or full-time jobs). But the “housewife” would soon be replaced by the double-shift working woman, eternally “juggling” the demands of both home and work. By the end of the 20th century, now with the help of a fridge and a car, the daily walk to the local shops had been replaced by a weekly trip to the supermarket, where everything was available under one roof, and the shopping was now a substantial task.

A 1970s supermarket flyer advertising jobs for women. Photo: Sainsbury Archive

The first 1950s self-service stores are distant enough today to have become the subject of mild nostalgia, obscuring the original picture of smart efficiency. Black-and-white photos from the archives show people (particularly women) of every social type gamely learning to manage the curious “basket” containers provided for them to carry around on their arms and fill up as they walked around the shop. What looks odd now, many decades later, is how little they’re buying—just a few jars and tins.

Archive image of shoppers in a supermarket. Photo: Sainsbury Archive

Save Time Online

With self-service firmly established to assist supposedly “time-poor” consumers, the stage was set for internet shopping to promise an even more efficient way of doing things.

An Ocado flyer from early 2019 displays the caption: “More time living, less time shopping,” as if living and shopping have become mutually exclusive. And crucially, it is not money but time that is the quantifiable currency of the promotion.

In this way, the online upgrade appears to remove all remaining real-life interference from the task of shopping. You don’t have to take yourself anywhere to get to the store, which never closes. There are no empty shelves; everything is always there on the screen. There is still a trolley or basket, but not one that you have to push or carry, and it will hold whatever you “add” to it, irrespective of volume or quantity.

The shop assistant is wholly absent from the screen, although there are downgraded virtual versions available in the form of programmed chat-bots. With online shopping, the backstage work that “fulfills” an order occurs in a storage facility far away and is invisible to the customer. But in large self-service settings, like supermarkets and DIY mega-stores, the role of the checkout cashier had already been reduced to that single scanning function, requiring no specialist range of skills and no particular knowledge of any one of the thousands of possible things, from bananas to baby wipes, that they might be rapidly moving along.

Back To The “Real” Shops?

Town centers had been dying a much discussed death for years, as more and more shops were being closed down and stayed unused.

But amid the doom and gloom, some towns were taking action to resist the trend, battling back with collective imagination and sometimes with significant financial backing. Shrewsbury Town Council revitalized a 1970s market building to make it a thriving center for food stalls, cafés, and specialist shops. The council also bought a couple of rundown indoor shopping centers in the town, which can now be redeveloped with community interests in mind.

On a smaller scale is Treorchy in South Wales, which won a national best High Street prize in 2019, thanks to its flourishing independent shops and cafés. They all worked together to organize cultural events with the help of an enterprising chamber of commerce.

Still, initiatives like these were the exception. For the places at the other extreme, where boarded-up units were everywhere, the call to keep shops open could sound like a hopeless plea, and too late to make a difference.

Lockdown’s Impact

In the first weeks of lockdown, it seemed that the pandemic would hasten the move online, by closing down most of the shops that were left and seemingly leaving online as the only option. But as that slow, strange time went on, it became clear that something quite different was going on. Two years later, we can see that the lockdowns brought about a return to slower, more local, and personal modes of shopping.

The shops still open for normal business—those that officially qualified as providers of “essential” goods—were being used in new (and yet old) ways. They became places to go for some vital variation in our daily routines.

People also began to make a point of supporting and using independent local shops. At the same time, home deliveries were being organized by these smaller shops, often working together in groups. This was the case with Heathfield, a few miles from Thomas Turner’s village in East Sussex. And it had nothing to do with the networks set up by the supermarkets and other big chains.

In the media, shop assistants, working on checkouts or filling shelves, began to be referred to as “frontline workers.” The implication of this “promotion” was that they were doing invaluable work that was comparable to the public-spirited dedication of NHS employees.

The local high street seemed to be benefitting from renewed appreciation. It was as if the pandemic had demonstrated what shops were really for, and why we should not let them go. To say that shops—real shops—are a much-needed community resource used to sound worthy and well-meaning. Now it just states the obvious.

A Return To Home Delivery

Meanwhile, another related revival is happening: home delivery. This is often assumed to have been an online invention, promoted by big supermarkets as the latest expansion of their networks and by big stores of all kinds.

But until the middle of the 20th century, most shops offered home delivery as a matter of course. For many food products, like milk or meat, this arrangement was the default. The butcher’s boy brought round the tray of meat, and the milkman delivered the bottles direct to your doorstep every morning.

With self-service came the end of most home delivery services, too. When bigger supermarkets were built on the edges of towns, in the 1980s and 1990s, the basket became a big trolley, and people put all the bags they came out with into their car. As with all the other changes associated with “self”-service, the difference was that customers were doing this work themselves.

The new delivery services offered by smaller, independent stores that started up during lockdown represented a return to local arrangements that were standard before the arrival of self-service. Yet, orders are often now made online. In this case, then, new technology has actively contributed to the revival of an older form of shopping.

In the East Sussex village of Rushlake Green, for example, the local shop began to offer home deliveries. This was so successful that they acquired a new delivery van with their name on the side. This marked something of a return to the 1930s, when local shops first started investing in a “motor van” to make deliveries (a new trend much remarked on in the trade handbooks of the time).

As it happens, this joining of the traditional with the latest tech is itself a long established phenomenon in the history of retail distribution. New modes of transport and communication have repeatedly modified the existing conditions of shopping, and the current manifestation has striking antecedents.

Virginia Woolf’s last novel, Between the Acts, offers a nice illustration of this. It is set at the end of the 1930s, when the installation of domestic telephones was beginning to make it possible for affluent customers to ring up the shop and order their meat or groceries for delivery without having to leave the house or send a servant.

One scene in the novel has a country lady distractedly ordering fish “in time for lunch” while she brushes her hair in front of the mirror and murmurs lines of poetry to herself. A few pages later, just as she requested, “The fish had been delivered. Mitchell’s boy, holding them in a crook of his arm, jumped off his motorbike.”

In Woolf’s time, this mode of transport, along with the phoned-in order, was a notable innovation, allowing just-in-time gourmet food deliveries. Almost a century later, the exclusive telephone is now the semi-universal smartphone, but the method of ordering at a distance is the same. And as it turns out, the motorbike has not been superseded in the online age of Deliveroo.

— Rachel Bowlby is a professor of comparative literature at University College London.

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sherwoodland · 3 years

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The Codependency myth.

A liberating and counterintuitive text from the book Attached, by Amir Levine, PhD and Rachel Heller, MA. We need connections, not detachment. Codependency does not exist, it's not an accepted diagnosis and never will be. Romantic love is an attachment bond. Pop-psychology gives you the wrong answers because it's not scientific.

“Emotional dependency is not immature or pathological; it is our greatest strength”.

Sue Johnson, PhD.

THE CODEPENDENCY MYTH

The codependency movement and other currently popular self-help approaches portray relationships in a way that is remarkably similar to the views held in the first half of the twentieth century about the child-parent bond (remember the “happy child” who is free of unnecessary attachments?). Today’s experts offer advice that goes something like this: Your happiness is something that should come from within and should not be dependent on your lover or mate. Your well-being is not their responsibility, and theirs is not yours. Each person needs to look after himself or herself. In addition, you should learn not to allow your inner peace to be disturbed by the person you are closest to. If your partner acts in a way that undermines your sense of security, you should be able to distance yourself from the situation emotionally, “keep the focus on yourself,” and stay on an even keel. If you can’t do that, there might be something wrong with you. You might be too enmeshed with the other person, or “codependent,” and you must learn to set better “boundaries.”

The basic premise underlying this point of view is that the ideal relationship is one between two self-sufficient people who unite in a mature, respectful way while maintaining clear boundaries. If you develop a strong dependency on your partner, you are deficient in some way and are advised to work on yourself to become more “differentiated” and develop a “greater sense of self.” The worst possible scenario is that you will end up needing your partner, which is equated with “addiction” to him or her, and addiction, we all know, is a dangerous prospect.

While the teachings of the codependency movement remain immensely helpful in dealing with family members who suffer from substance abuse (as was the initial intention), they can be misleading and even damaging when applied indiscriminately to all relationships. Karen, whom we met earlier in the televised race, has been influenced by these schools of thought. But biology tells a very different story.

THE BIOLOGICAL TRUTH

Numerous studies show that once we become attached to someone, the two of us form one physiological unit. Our partner regulates our blood pressure, our heart rate, our breathing, and the levels of hormones in our blood. We are no longer separate entities. The emphasis on differentiation that is held by most of today’s popular psychology approaches to adult relationships does not hold water from a biological perspective. Dependency is a fact; it is not a choice or a preference.

A study conducted by James Coan is particularly illuminating to that effect: Dr. James Coan is the director of the Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at the University of Virginia. He investigates the mechanisms through which close social relationships and broader social networks regulate our emotional responses. In this particular study, which he conducted in collaboration with Richard Davidson and Hillary Schaefer, he used functional MRI technology to scan the brains of married women. While these women were being scanned, Dr. Coan and his colleagues simulated a stressful situation by telling them that they were about to receive a very mild electric shock.

Normally, under stressful conditions the hypothalamus becomes activated. And indeed this is what happened in the experiment to the women when they were alone awaiting the shock—their hypothalamus lit up. Next, they tested the women who were holding a stranger’s hand while they waited. This time the scans showed somewhat reduced activity in the hypothalamus. And when the hand that the women held was their husband’s? The dip was much more dramatic—their stress was barely detectable. Furthermore, the women who benefited most from spousal hand-holding were those who reported the highest marital satisfaction—but we’ll get back to this point later.

The study demonstrates that when two people form an intimate relationship, they regulate each other’s psychological and emotional well-being. Their physical proximity and availability influence the stress response. How can we be expected to maintain a high level of differentiation between ourselves and our partners if our basic biology is influenced by them to such an extent?

It seems that Karen from our example instinctively understood the healing effect of holding her partner’s hand under stressful conditions. Unfortunately, she later gave in to common misconceptions and viewed her instinct as a weakness, something to be ashamed of.

THE “DEPENDENCY PARADOX”

Well before brain imaging technology was developed, John Bowlby understood that our need for someone to share our lives with is part of our genetic makeup and has nothing to do with how much we love ourselves or how fulfilled we feel on our own. He discovered that once we choose someone special, powerful and often uncontrollable forces come into play. New patterns of behavior kick in regardless of how independent we are and despite our conscious wills. Once we choose a partner, there is no question about whether dependency exists or not. It always does. An elegant coexistence that does not include uncomfortable feelings of vulnerability and fear of loss sounds good but is not our biology. What proved through evolution to have a strong survival advantage is a human couple becoming one physiological unit, which means that if she’s reacting, then I’m reacting, or if he’s upset, that also makes me unsettled. He or she is part of me, and I will do anything to save him or her; having such a vested interest in the well-being of another person translates into a very important survival advantage for both parties.

Despite variations in the way people with different attachment styles learn to deal with these powerful forces—the secure and anxious types embrace them and the avoidants tend to suppress them—all three attachment styles are programmed to connect with a special someone. In fact, chapter 6 describes a series of experiments that demonstrate that avoidants have attachment needs but actively suppress them.

Does this mean that in order to be happy in a relationship we need to be joined with our partner at the hip or give up other aspects of our life such as our careers or friends? Paradoxically, the opposite is true! It turns out that the ability to step into the world on our own often stems from the knowledge that there is someone beside us whom we can count on—and this is the “dependency paradox.” The logic of this paradox is hard to follow at first. How can we act more independent by being thoroughly dependent on someone else? If we had to describe the basic premise of adult attachment in a single sentence, it would be: If you want to take the road to independence and happiness, first find the right person to depend on and travel down it with them. Once you understand this, you’ve grasped the essence of attachment theory. To illustrate this principle, let’s take another look at childhood, where attachment starts. Nothing better demonstrates the idea we’re conveying than what is known in the field as the strange situation test.

THE STRANGE SITUATION TEST

Sarah and her twelve-month-old daughter, Kimmy, enter a room full of toys. A friendly young research assistant is waiting in the room and exchanges a few words with them. Kimmy starts to explore this newfound toy heaven—she crawls around, picks up toys, throws them to the ground, and checks whether they rattle, roll, or light up, while glancing at her mom from time to time.

Then Kimmy’s mother is instructed to leave the room; she gets up and quietly walks out. The minute Kimmy realizes what has happened she becomes distraught. She crawls over to the door as quickly as she can, sobbing. She calls out to her mother and bangs on the door. The research assistant tries to interest Kimmy in a box full of colorful building blocks, but this only makes Kimmy more agitated and she throws one of the blocks in the research assistant’s face.

When her mother returns to the room after a short while, Kimmy rushes toward her on all fours and raises her arms to be held. The two embrace and Sarah calmly reassures her daughter. Kimmy hugs her mom tight and stops sobbing. Once she is at ease again, Kimmy’s interest in the toys reawakens and she resumes her play.

The experiment Sarah and Kimmy participated in is probably the most important study in the field of attachment theory—referred to as the strange situation test (the version described here is an abbreviated version of the test). Mary Ainsworth was fascinated by the way in which children’s exploratory drive—their ability to play and learn—could be aroused or stifled by their mother’s presence or departure.

She found that having an attachment figure in the room was enough to allow a child to go out into a previously unknown environment and explore with confidence. This presence is known as a secure base. It is the knowledge that you are backed by someone who is supportive and whom you can rely on with 100 percent certainty and turn to in times of need. A secure base is a prerequisite for a child’s ability to explore, develop, and learn.

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stargir1z · 3 years

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rachel bowlby on store mannequins

#from my course #on consumerism #on capitalism #words #my uploads

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faintingheroine · 2 years

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“Unlike other elementary human experiences, and for all its importance as a daily occupation and preoccupation in people’s lives, parenthood has often tended to go without saying: as if we know the story, and the story is not very interesting. Compared to the passions of childhood, parenthood appears as just the counterpart or background: where there is a child, there are or were parents. Compared to the spectacular attachments of erotic and romantic love, it looks like nothing more than a predictable and storyless sequel: where there is a marriage, there will probably be children.”

(A Child of One’s Own by Rachel Bowlby)

#rachel bowlby #a child of one’s own

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aion-rsa · 4 years

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DC Fandome: Complete DC TV Panel Schedule

https://ift.tt/eA8V8J

We’re very excited for next Saturday’s DC Fandome. Honestly, the DC Entertainment-run virtual event looks way more impressive that Comic Con at Home, boasting 24 hours of content for fans of the page and screen stories of DC Comics to nerd out over. DC just released the complete schedule for the event and, while there’s plenty of big screen stuff to look out for, from Wonder Woman 1984 to The Batman, there’s also some pretty exciting TV content on the docket. Here’s the complete DC TV schedule, with times (in ET) and panel descriptions.

DC Superhero Girls Season 2 Sneak Peek – 1 pm

A long-awaited character will be making their debut in season two of DC Super Hero Girls. Do you know who it is? You will soon!

The Flash – 1 pm

Executive producer Eric Wallace joins cast members Grant Gustin, Candice Patton, Danielle Panabaker, Carlos Valdes, Danielle Nicolet, Kayla Compton and Brandon McKnight to discuss all things Flash with Entertainment Weekly’s Chancellor Agard. Team Flash will break down both parts of season six and look ahead at what is to come with an exclusive trailer for season seven. Fans will also get a look at the exclusive black-and-white noir episode “Kiss Kiss Breach Breach,” available on the Season 6 Blu-ray and DVD.

Teen Titans Go! – 1 pm

Don’t miss a special cast table read of some of your favorite moments from the series with executive producer Peter Michail and voice cast members Tara Strong, Khary Payton, Greg Cipes and Scott Menville.

Black Lightning – 1:45 pm

Join Black Lightning stars Cress Williams, China Anne McClain, Nafessa Williams, Christine Adams, Marvin “Krondon” Jones III, Jordan Calloway and James Remar with actor/filmmaker Robert Townsend moderating as they pay homage to the ’90s.

Truth, Justice, and the DC Comics Way – 1:45 pm

Who would have thought the “injustices of the world” first read in comic books and then acted out in some of today’s most popular DC Super Hero films and television series would intersect with today’s real-life civil, social and political unrest? Series stars David Harewood and Nicole Maines (Supergirl), Marvin “Krondon” Jones III (Black Lightning), Anna Diop (Titans) and executive producer/showrunner Eric Wallace (The Flash) discuss how the genesis of comic books has always been rooted in the search of truth and justice: it’s the DC Comics way!

Multiverse 101 – 2:15 pm

Get schooled in this engaging refresher course on the creation of the Multiverse with DC Chief Creative Officer/Publisher Jim Lee, Warner Bros. Pictures President of DC-Based Film Production Walter Hamada, and Berlanti Productions founder/DCTV mega-producer Greg Berlanti.

Pennyworth – 2:30 pm

Join series stars Jack Bannon, Ben Aldridge, Paloma Faith, Emma Paetz, and executive producers Bruno Heller and Danny Cannon as they talk about this unique origin story of the famed butler behind Batman, Alfred Pennyworth. Join in for a fond look back at the show’s exciting first season and the inspiration behind its stunning and edgy 1960s London setting, plus a few unexpected secrets about the new season ahead!

DC’s Legends of Tomorrow – 3 pm

Join the cast and producers of DC’s Legends of Tomorrow for a Q&A and, of course, lots of laughs! Be sure to tune in to get the inside scoop on favorite moments from past seasons and what they have in store for season six. Series stars Caity Lotz, Nick Zano, Matt Ryan, Tala Ashe, Jes Macallan, Olivia Swann, Amy Louise Pemberton and Shayan Sobhian join executive producers Phil Klemmer, Keto Shimizu and Grainne Godfree for a panel moderated by Entertainment Weekly’s Chancellor Agard.

BAWSE Females of Color Within the DC Universe – 3:45 pm

What’s a BAWSE? Find out here as some of the hottest actresses across DC television and film sit down with celebrity DJ D-Nice and Grammy-winning singer/actress Estelle to discuss how they use their confidence and vulnerability to navigate their careers in Hollywood. Panelists include Meagan Good (SHAZAM!), Javicia Leslie (Batwoman), Candice Patton (The Flash), Tala Ashe (DC’s Legends of Tomorrow), Nafessa Williams and Chantal Thuy (Black Lightning), and Anna Diop and Damaris Lewis (Titans).

Doom Patrol – 4:15 pm

Join the “world’s strangest heroes” — the Doom Patrol — for a deep-dive discussion into the beloved and bizarre series. Panel will feature executive producers Jeremy Carver and Chris Dingess, co-executive producer Tamara Becher-Wilkinson, and series stars Matt Bomer, Diane Guerrero, April Bowlby, Joivan Wade, Timothy Dalton, Karen Obilom, Abigail Shapiro, Riley Shanahan and Matthew Zuk.

Superman & Lois – 5:35 pm

Join DC Chief Creative Officer/Publisher Jim Lee in a conversation with executive producer/showrunner Todd Helbing and series stars Tyler Hoechlin and Elizabeth Tulloch as they discuss the history of Superman from the comics to the screen, what fans can expect from the upcoming series, and the significance of the characters in the world of today.

Lucifer – 8 pm

Lucifer is back from Hell, and the series is bringing a never-before-seen blooper reel from season four along with an exclusive clip of “Another One Bites the Dust” from the upcoming musical episode. Director Sherwin Shilati and Lucifer executive producers/showrunners Joe Henderson and Ildy Modrovich discuss what it took to put together such a massive musical episode — and how they have been able to keep it under wraps for so long.

Titans – 8:30 pm

Join executive producer Greg Walker and series stars Brenton Thwaites, Anna Diop, Teagan Croft, Ryan Potter, Conor Leslie, Curran Walters, Joshua Orpin, Damaris Lewis, with Alan Ritchson and Minka Kelly for a preview of the new season as well as a discussion on the “Top Titans Moments” of the first two seasons.

Young Justice – 9 pm

Join executive producers Greg Weisman and Brandon Vietti plus voice cast members Jason Spisak, Khary Payton, Stephanie Lemelin, Nolan North, Denise Boutte, Danica McKellar and Crispin Freeman for a special audio play performance of a brand-new Young Justice episode. After the table read, stick around for a Q&A session previewing the new season.

DC’s Stargirl – 9:45 pm

DC’s Stargirl creator/executive producer Geoff Johns joins cast members Brec Bassinger, Amy Smart, Yvette Monreal, Anjelika Washington and Cameron Gellman for a panel full of fun and inside scoop. Join the new Justice Society of America as they dive into that epic showdown and learn a little more about each other through some special lenses.

Batwoman – 10:30 pm

Join executive producers Caroline Dries and Sarah Schechter plus cast members Rachel Skarsten, Meagan Tandy, Camrus Johnson and Nicole Kang for the exclusive first discussion with the highly anticipated new Batwoman Javicia Leslie as she prepares to step into the iconic role. The cast will break down season one and give a sneak peek at season two, featuring new arrival Ryan Wilder, aka Batwoman.

The post DC Fandome: Complete DC TV Panel Schedule appeared first on Den of Geek.

from Den of Geek https://ift.tt/2E4cCUF

#aion-rsa #Den of Geek

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constellations-soc · 4 years

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via Thinking Allowed

Consumer pleasures - Laurie Taylor explores the place of shopping in our lives, as well as within sociological thought. He's joined by Professor Colin Campbell, Dr Kate Soper and Professor Rachel Bowlby. Revised repeat. Producer: Jayne Egerton

#thinking allowed #bbc radio 4 #sociology

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yourtransgendersocialworker · 5 years

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02.18.2019, On the Anxious Style Attachment and Relationship Cycles.

I recently finished the book, “Attached,” by Amir Levine and Rachel S. F. Heller. The book was wonderfully insightful, but not entirely new to me. I’ve been a student of attachment theory for the last seven years, but my learning and understanding continues to develop and reading this book left a positive taste in my mouth.

I’ve been quick to say I’ve got an anxious attachment. It makes sense, I grew up in an unpredictable environment. As a young child, I was acutely attuned to the emotions of others, primarily out of fear.

“Is she sick again?” “Can I wake her?” “Is he going to scream at my sister or is he going to not leave his room for three days?” “Did I do a good enough job?” “Is he calling me into his room to tell me goodbye?” “Is he killing himself?” “If I do this for you, will you stay?” “If I’m sick, will you never let me come back?” “If I go to the kitchen, will someone come criticize me?” Do these people care about me? Do they even notice?

I was on-guard, vibrating at a higher anxious frequency than the other kids, the ones not worried about the life or death or disaster waiting for them at home. Sometimes met with suffocating love, sometimes met with silence, sometimes met with anger and illness. A child shouldn’t learn a poker face, a numb neutral response ready to evaluate the next moves of the others.

People mistake anxious attachment with neediness. Here is the truth: people need to relate with others. “A ‘Secure Base,”’ according to John Bowlby, argues that healthy human development is based in the psychological security of being able to depend and feel protected from danger by our loved ones... When one feels that one can depend on a protective figure for safety and security, one is more willing to explore one’s wold, and paradoxically, become a more independent person later in life. (Mendoza-Denton, 2012). This is known as the “dependency paradox,” not to be confused with a needy and anxious attachment. It is healthy to develop secure relationships where needs are met and opportunities to self-explore are available.

I know my weaknesses and I’m not going to beat around the bush about them, because they are important to understanding me and loving me. I fear rejection, abandonment, I fear not being good enough, I fear I’m faking it. I put my partner on a pedestal while quick to cut myself down. I’m always worried I’m bad and not good enough.

The positives of being a social worker and therapist and someone fascinated by attachment theory is that I am wanting to Do. The. Work. I want to be better, more secure. I want to own and honor my hard history but also do my adult duties to ensure my growth and ensure I can be the best mate and partner.

What I’ve learned is that, while sure, I’ve got quite the anxious underbelly, I’ve actually gained so many secure-based skills. In fact, when doing the assessments in the book, I scored higher in the secure base than I did the anxious base. This is because, as all things, this is a spectrum. I was happy to see how many actions I take actually show growth and learning.

The biggest takeaway I carried from moving from anxious to secure is COMMUNICATION. You must learn effective communication. You must share your insecurities, take ownership of them, focus on the problem at hand, refrain from generalization, be willing to engage and effectively communicate feeling and needs. You must acknowledge the other person’s thoughts, feelings and needs as well. You must be willing to work to repair the damage that can be done from anxious thinking.

I really believe that being a therapist and constantly teaching families effective communication has helped me refine my emotional vocabulary and has opened me to increased vulnerable expression. They say attachment styles are static but plastic. They can change over time. I believe my work as a therapist, as constantly working through clients to help refine feelings has helped me access my own emotional vocabulary.

I am not a perfect communicator. As seen in my last relationship, sometimes I would let hours go by, staying distant and cold, before I would share what was bothering me. But instead of letting these these things fester for days, I would break it down, whether an hour or a few hours later, and explain, “This is how I feel.” “If I spoke angrily, I admitted, I spoke out of emotion that was incorrect. I apologized. Here was my fear. Here is where some reassurance would be helpful.” And sometimes, you know what, I was a really dang good communicator and I didn’t wait hours. Sometimes I said right away, “You know, you going to dinner with him makes me feel weird. Can we talk about it?” And the results were great. For me, at least. I felt reassured and heard.

Not all attachment styles are going to respond well to effective communication. One statement that really resonated with me in Attached- “Don’t be afraid to express your needs, thoughts and feelings to your partner! What often happens when we’re dating is that we censor ourselves for different reasons: We don’t want to sound too eager or needy or believe it’s too soon to raise a certain topic. However, expressing your needs and true feelings can be a useful litmus test of the other person’s capacity to meet your needs. The response, in real time, is usually much more telling than anything he or she could ever reveal of their own accord.” (Levine, Heller, 2011).

Sometimes avoidant partners may read this as needy, consuming, loss of self. Avoidant personalities often seem to confuse sufficiency with dependency. (Dependency has really gotten a bad reputation! But depending on others to share love and happiness and support is a very important part of life.) I truly believe, the key is communication. Now, where I won’t go into tonight, but will soon, is the communication ouroboros. You share, you share your good, you share your bad, they hear your bad, the bad consumes, you are stuck self-depreciating and they are eating it like the tail of your snake. They soak it up and nod and nod and thank you for communicating and proving them right all along!

Sometimes, your partner is the one who isn’t able to meet the secure communication needs. It’s better to know that early on than to try and try with an avoidant partner, or partner not wanting to put in effort. You expressing needs is not bad. Your partner not being able to meet those needs isn’t inherently bad about them, but it is bad for the both of you.

I hope we all find ourselves talking openly, honestly, and unafraid that our truths will leave us abandoned. I can’t say that’s my experience yet, (self-deprecation snake!) but I suspect I’m on the right path. Someone will soon feel secure enough to bounce back with some gentle communication.

#attachment #anxious attachment #anxious #therapy #communication #relationships #social work #avoidant #avoidant personality disorder #writing #trans #ftm #queer #love #transgender

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medusanevertalks · 5 years

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— Virginia L Blum, Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery; 2003

#Virginia L Blum #Flesh Wounds: The Culture of Cosmetic Surgery #2003 #quote #cosmetic surgery #Rachel Bowlby #built-in impasses of the notion of agency #consumer society #active ''choice'' consumers — helplessly acting on desires #« Century of the Self »#complementary consumers #fixed opposition between control & its absense #a perfect world/ ready-made/ custom-bult/ tension

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igreyphd · 5 years

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Jacques Derrida

“Speech and Phenomena” and Other Essays on Husserl’s Theory of Signs, trans. David B. Allison (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1973).

Of Grammatology, trans. Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak (Baltimore & London: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976) (hardcover: ISBN 0-8018-1841-9, paperback: ISBN 0-8018-1879-6, corrected edition: ISBN 0-8018-5830-5).[174]

Writing and Difference, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978) ISBN 978-0-226-14329-3.

Spurs: Nietzsche’s Styles, trans. Barbara Harlow (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1979, ISBN 978-0-226-14333-0).

The Archeology of the Frivolous: Reading Condillac, trans. John P. Leavey Jr. (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 1980).

Dissemination, trans. Barbara Johnson (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981, ISBN 978-0-226-14334-7).

Positions, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981, ISBN 978-0-226-14331-6) [Paris, Minuit, 1972].

Margins of Philosophy, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1982, ISBN 978-0-226-14326-2).

Signsponge, trans. Richard Rand (New York: Columbia University Press, 1984).

The Ear of the Other, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 1985).

Glas, trans. John P. Leavey, Jr. & Richard Rand (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 1986).

Memoires for Paul de Man (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986; revised edn., 1989).

The Post Card: From Socrates to Freud and Beyond, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1987, ISBN 978-0-226-14322-4).

The Truth in Painting, trans. Geoffrey Bennington & Ian McLeod (Chicago & London: Chicago University Press, 1987, ISBN 978-0-226-14324-8).

Limited Inc (Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1988).

Edmund Husserl’s Origin of Geometry: An Introduction, trans. John P. Leavey, Jr. (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 1989).

Of Spirit: Heidegger and the Question, trans. Geoffrey Bennington & Rachel Bowlby (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1989, ISBN 978-0-226-14319-4).

Cinders (book)|Cinders, trans. Ned Lukacher (Lincoln & London: University of Nebraska Press, 1991).

Acts of Literature (New York & London: Routledge, 1992).

Given Time|Given Time: I. Counterfeit Money, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1992, ISBN 978-0-226-14314-9).

The Other Heading|The Other Heading: Reflections on Today’s Europe, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault & Michael B. Naas (Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1992).

Aporias, trans. Thomas Dutoit (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993).

Jacques Derrida (book)|Jacques Derrida, co-author & trans. Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago & London: Chicago University Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-226-04262-6).

Memoirs of the Blind|Memoirs of the Blind: The Self-Portrait and Other Ruins, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault & Michael Naas (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1993, ISBN 978-0-226-14308-8).

Specters of Marx: The State of the Debt, the Work of Mourning, and the New International, trans. Peggy Kamuf (New York & London: Routledge, 1994).

Archive Fever: A Freudian Impression, trans. Eric Prenowitz (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-226-14367-5).

The Gift of Death, trans. David Wills (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1995, ISBN 978-0-226-14306-4).

On the Name, trans. David Wood, John P. Leavey, Jr., & Ian McLeod (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995).

Points…: Interviews 1974-1994, trans. Peggy Kamuf and others, (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1995) (see also the footnote about ISBN 0-226-14314-7, here) (see also the [1992] French Version Points de suspension: entretiens (ISBN 0-8047-2488-1) there).

Chora L Works, with Peter Eisenman (New York: Monacelli, 1997).

Politics of Friendship, trans. George Collins (London & New York: Verso, 1997).

Monolingualism of the Other; or, The Prosthesis of Origin, trans. Patrick Mensah (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).

Resistances of Psychoanalysis, trans. Peggy Kamuf, Pascale-Anne Brault and Michael Naas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998).

The Secret Art of Antonin Artaud, with Paule Thévenin, trans. Mary Ann Caws (Cambridge, Mass., & London: MIT Press, 1998).

Adieu: To Emmanuel Levinas, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault & Michael Naas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1999).

Rights of Inspection, trans. David Wills (New York: Monacelli, 1999).

Demeure: Fiction and Testimony, with Maurice Blanchot, The Instant of My Death, trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

Of Hospitality, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2000).

Deconstruction Engaged: The Sydney Seminars (Sydney: Power Publications, 2001).

On Cosmopolitanism and Forgiveness, trans. Mark Dooley & Michael Hughes (London & New York: Routledge, 2001).

A Taste for the Secret, with Maurizio Ferraris, trans. Giacomo Donis (Cambridge: Polity, 2001).

The Work of Mourning, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault & Michael Naas (Chicago & London: Chicago University Press, 2001, ISBN 978-0-226-14281-4).

Acts of Religion (New York & London: Routledge, 2002).

Echographies of Television: Filmed Interviews, with Bernard Stiegler, trans. Jennifer Bajorek (Cambridge: Polity, 2002).

Ethics, Institutions, and the Right to Philosophy, trans Peter Pericles Trifonas (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2002).

Negotiations: Interventions and Interviews, 1971–2001, trans. Elizabeth Rottenberg (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

Who’s Afraid of Philosophy?: Right to Philosophy 1, trans. Jan Plug (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

Without Alibi, trans. Peggy Kamuf (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2002).

Philosophy in a Time of Terror|Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida, with Jürgen Habermas (Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-226-06666-0).

The Problem of Genesis in Husserl’s Philosophy, trans. Marian Hobson (Chicago & London: Chicago University Press, 2003, ISBN 978-0-226-14315-6).

Counterpath, with Catherine Malabou, trans. David Wills (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).

Eyes of the University: Right to Philosophy 2, trans. Jan Plug (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).

For What Tomorrow…: A Dialogue, with Elisabeth Roudinesco, trans. Jeff Fort (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).

Rogues: Two Essays on Reason, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault & Michael Naas (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2004).

On Touching—Jean-Luc Nancy, trans. Christine Irizarry (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005).

Paper Machine, trans. Rachel Bowlby (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005).

Sovereignties in Question|Sovereignties in Question: The Poetics of Paul Celan, trans. Thomas Dutoit (New York: Fordham University Press, 2005).

H. C. for Life: That Is to Say…, trans. Laurent Milesi & Stefan Herbrechter (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2006).

Geneses, Genealogies, Genres, and Genius|Geneses, Genealogies, Genres, And Genius: The Secrets of the Archive, trans. Beverly Bie Brahic (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006).

Learning to Live Finally: The Last Interview, with Jean Birnbaum, trans. Pascale-Anne Brault & Michael Naas (Melville House, 2007).

Psyche: Inventions of the Other, Volume I (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2007).

Psyche: Inventions of the Other, Volume II (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008).

The Animal That Therefore I Am, trans. David Wills (New York: Fordham University Press, 2008).

The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume I, trans. Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2009, ISBN 978-0-226-14428-3).

Copy, Archive, Signature: A Conversation on Photography, ed. Gerhard Richter, trans. Jeff Fort (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2010).

Athens, Still Remains: The Photographs of Jean-François Bonhomme, trans. Michael Naas (New York: Fordham University Press, 2010).

Parages, ed. John P. Leavey, trans. Tom Conley, James Hulbert, John P. Leavey, and Avital Ronell (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2011).

The Beast and the Sovereign, Volume II, trans. Geoffrey Bennington (Chicago: University of Chicago Press ISBN 978-0-226-14430-6).

Signature Derrida, ed. Jay Williams (Chicago: University of Chicago Press ISBN 978-0-226-92452-6).

The Death Penalty, Volume I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2014, ISBN 978-0-226-14432-0).

Heidegger: The Question of Being and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016, ISBN 978-0-226-35511-5).

Body of Prayer, co-authored with David Shapiro and Michal Govrin (New York: The Irwin S. Chanin School of Architecture, 2001).

#bibliography

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