Critical Luxury Studies

Assembling the foremost scholars in this innovative, distinctive and expanding subject, internationally well-known critical theorists John Armitage and Joanne Roberts present a ground-breaking aesthetic, design-led and media-related examination of the relations between historical and, crucially, contemporary ideas of luxury. Critical Luxury Studies offers a technoculturally inspired survey of the mediated arts and design, as well as a means of comprehending the socio-economic order with novel philosophical tools and critical methods of interrogation that are re-defining the concept of luxury in the 21st century.

Author Biography

John Armitage is Emeritus Professor of Media Arts at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. John’s research interests include luxury and visual culture, new media art, continental philosophy, and the critical theory of technology. He is the author of Luxury and Visual Culture (2020) and Luxury Philosophy (2025). Joanne Roberts is Professor in Arts and Cultural Management and Director of the Winchester Luxury Research Group at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton, United Kingdom. Her research interests include knowledge, innovation, creativity, and luxury. Her latest book is A Very Short, Fairly Interesting and Reasonably Cheap Book about Knowledge Management (Sage Publications, 2015). She is an Editorial Advisory Board member of Luxury: History, Culture, Consumption (Taylor & Francis).