Hedonizing Technologies: Paths to Pleasure in Hobbies and Leisure

Request PDF on ResearchGate | Hedonizing technologies: Paths to pleasure in hobbies and leisure | Rachel P. Maines's latest work examines the rise of.
Table of contents


  1. The 3 Cs: The Only Book You Need To Find Your Life Partner.
  2. .
  3. Die 50 besten Kalorienkiller: Die wichtigsten Stoffwechsel-Turbos von A bis Z - Abnehmtipps für jede?
  4. Business Networks in Japan: Supplier-Customer Interaction in Product Development (Routledge Advances.

If you are a seller for this product, would you like to suggest updates through seller support? Learn more about Amazon Prime. Read more Read less.

Customers who bought this item also bought. Page 1 of 1 Start over Page 1 of 1. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene Experimental Futures. Sponsored products related to this item What's this? Looking for ways to make life a little easier?

Fully updated, get the bible of household solutions from the 5-million-copy-selling Who Knew? Hours of Sudoku puzzles to enjoy! Makes a perfect gift for birthdays, holidays, or just to relax. Enjoy these easy-to-read puzzles anytime, anywhere! Sudoku Easy Puzzles Volume A step by step practical guide to implementing stoic philosophy and face the modern life challenges with joy and wisdom. When was the last time you colored? How did it make you feel? This is the best time to enjoy the amazing feeling of coloring, yet again!

Confidently teach in any college classroom using the approaches, strategies and techniques from the K and business marketing world! About the Author Rachel P.

Editorial Reviews

Related Video Shorts 0 Upload your video. Try the Kindle edition and experience these great reading features: Share your thoughts with other customers. Write a customer review. There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later. In Hedonizing Technologies, author Rachel P. Maines argues that certain activities as performed by individuals rather than businesses have been completely or almost completely transformed from necessities to hobbies.

Most of the book focuses on needlework, with other activities mentioned as parallels. This is problematic, partly because some are not truly hobbies. For example, sex is described as a hobby, ignoring not only biological but traditional social necessities such as production of heirs. All economic and practical benefits other than payment are ignored. For example, this book asserts that cooking is now unnecessary, because for almost all meals, everyone but hobbyists just pops prepackaged food into a microwave or goes out for fast food. It's also puzzling why sports such as tennis, which have always been recreations except for paid teachers and more recently a few professional athletes, are described as hedonized.

Hedonizing Technologies: Paths to Pleasure in Hobbies and Leisure

Maines says she focuses on needlework because it is the subject with which she is most familiar. However, this book is riddled with errors. She begins the discussion of fancy needlework with the Middle Ages, but conflates the beginning of hobby needlework with what she perceives as the earliest documentation for it. Ancient, primitive, and peasant communities have done enormous amounts of fancy needlework over the centuries and many examples have survived.

It's not actually necessary to produce numerous colors with dyes, to do ornamental weaving, to embroider, and to otherwise make decorative textiles. In the very few cases where she glancingly admits they exist, Maines seems to assume that all these decorative textiles were necessarily professional, which she conflates with made for sale.


  • Greedy, Cowardly, and Weak: Hollywoods Jewish Stereotypes?
  • Customers who bought this item also bought?
  • The Crucifixion: No. 9, God So Loved the World?
  • She also asserts that all preindustrial tools and materials including natural dyes were of inferior quality, and apparently that therefore all textiles produced by them were necessarily inferior. However, she does not really discuss such textiles, who produced them, or why. As technologies are "hedonized,' consumers find increasing pleasure in the hobbies' associated tools, methods, and instructional literature.

    Hedonizing Technologies uses bibliometric and retail census data to show the growth in world markets for hobby craft tools, books, periodicals, and materials from the late 18th century to today. The book addresses basic issues in the history of labor and industry and makes an original contribution to the discussion of how technology and people interact.

    What Is a Hedonizing Technology? Leisure and Necessity 3. Diverging Paths in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries 4. The Hedonizing Marketplace 5.

    Project MUSE - Hedonizing Technologies

    Biases of Collecting and Connoisseurship Appendix B. Notes Includes bibliographical references and index. View online Borrow Buy Freely available Show 0 more links Set up My libraries How do I set up "My libraries"? These 5 locations in All: Edith Cowan University Library.

    Document Preview

    University of Sydney Library. Open to the public. Open to the public ; Open to the public Book; Illustrated English Show 0 more libraries These 2 locations in New South Wales: This single location in South Australia: This single location in Victoria: This single location in Western Australia: None of your libraries hold this item. Found at these bookshops Searching - please wait