As the dust settles after the chaos of Black Friday, Cyber Monday and the holiday shopping season, it’s the perfect time to take a closer look at America’s consumer culture, including ‘affluenza,’ the epidemic of overconsumption. In a new course, called “Studying Consumerism,” offered by the Department of Communication in Drexel University’s College of Arts and Sciences, students—and a limited number of alumni and members of the general public—can do just that. The winter term course, which runs from Jan. 5 – March 21, will provide students with a broad overview of critical, historical and practical issues pertaining to consumerism as well as branding and marketing.