Ellsworth/Fabricating Authenicity, Introduction: Commodifying Authenticity

The Introduction, through a variety of examples such as self-help books, Coca-Cola, national cuisines, and wine, considers how authenticity rhetoric is employed and commodified, demonstrating just how pervasive it is in our current social worlds. Rather than joining the “authenticity” debates, this volume aims to complicate and problematize discourses of authenticity, which are otherwise left unexamined or even taken at face value, to examine the practical effects and consequences of these claims.