A book that treats fandom, fashion, and tarot reading as subjects worthy of serious critical attention. Elizabeth Wilson writes with the rigour of an academic and the openness of a fellow enthusiast, which makes Cultural Passions: Fans, Aesthetes and Tarot Readers a rare kind of criticism that does not condescend to the things people love. It earns its place on the shelf of any reader who has ever felt slightly embarrassed about caring too much about a book, a sport, or a ritual.
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It is a work of cultural criticism that examines the emotional commitment people bring to the books, performances, objects, and rituals they find meaningful. The book spans topics from fashion and Surrealism to tarot reading and fan culture, and it challenges the idea that pleasure and aesthetic appreciation need to be defended.
Elizabeth Wilson is a British cultural critic and academic. She is the author of Adorned in Dreams: Fashion and Modernity and Bohemians: The Glamorous Outcasts, among other works. She has also written a series of crime novels. She is Visiting Professor of Cultural Studies at London College of Fashion, University of the Arts, London.
It is for readers interested in cultural studies, fashion, and popular culture. It also suits anyone who has ever wondered why the things they love are sometimes treated as guilty pleasures, and who wants a serious, thoughtful examination of fandom, taste, and the meaning of aesthetic experience.
The book covers a wide range of subjects, including fashion and memory, glamour and masochism, the relationship between Surrealism and fashion, the treatment of fan culture, urban planning, and the practice of reading tarot. It is divided into four sections: Cultural Diseases, Fashion, The Future We Have Lost, and Magic Moments.
Wilson does not privilege high culture over popular culture, and she does not treat pleasure as something that requires an intellectual justification. She moves between Proust and Federer, between urban planning and tarot readings, and she does so without losing the thread of her argument. The book is accessible to general readers while still engaging seriously with cultural theory.
