This course was taught during the academic year 2025–2026 and explored the relationship between subcultures and consumption from the mid-twentieth century to the present. It examined how youth cultures have historically interacted with systems of production, media, and markets, both resisting and reshaping dominant forms of consumer culture.
The course began with an introduction to the concepts of subculture and consumption, providing students with the theoretical tools necessary to understand how collective identities are formed and expressed through cultural practices and patterns of consumption.
The central part of the course focused on the emergence and evolution of youth subcultures in the second half of the twentieth century. It first considered earlier developments in the 1930s and 1940s, tracing the cultural and social conditions that anticipated later subcultural formations. It then examined the Beatniks, Mods, and Rockers, highlighting the rise of countercultural expressions in the 1950s and the role of British youth cultures in the 1960s, particularly in the interplay between fashion and music.
The course also addressed the Hippie movement and the broader counterculture of the 1960s, emphasizing the search for alternatives to consumerism and the rejection of materialist values. It then moved to the late twentieth century, analyzing punk and post-punk subcultures of the 1970s and 1980s as responses to economic crisis and the expansion of mass consumption. Further attention was given to the development of goth and grunge cultures in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as to the rise of hip-hop and rap, understood as forms of street culture in which music, style, and consumption practices are deeply interconnected. The course concluded this historical trajectory by examining trap music in the context of globalization.
The final part of the course adopted a broader analytical perspective, focusing on the relationship between subcultures, consumption, and global processes. It explored how consumption practices contribute to the construction of subcultural identities, and how globalization has facilitated the diffusion and transformation of local subcultures into global phenomena.
Particular attention was devoted to the impact of digitalization, especially the role of the internet and social media in shaping contemporary subcultures, including the emergence of digital cultures and meme-based forms of expression. The course also examined the figure of the influencer and the growing entanglement between cultural production and marketing, reflecting on the tensions between authenticity and commodification in contemporary youth cultures.
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