Humanities > Anthropology > American Dream: Exploring Class in the U.S.

American Dream: Exploring Class in the U.S. posted by duggu on 11/26/2007

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Course Description

Americans have historically preferred to think of the United States in classless terms, as a land of economic opportunity equally open to all. Yet, social class remains a central fault line in the U.S. Subject explores the experiences and understandings of class among Americans positioned at different points along the U.S. social spectrum. Considers a variety of classic frameworks for analyzing social class and uses memoirs, novels and ethnographies to gain a sense of how class is experienced in daily life and how it intersects with other forms of social difference such as race and gender.

Recommended Citation

For any use or distribution of these materials, please cite as follows:

Christine Walley, course materials for 21A.235 American Dream: Exploring Class in the U.S., Spring 2007. MIT OpenCourseWare (http://ocw.mit.edu/), Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Downloaded on [DD Month YYYY].

Syllabus

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Topics covered in this course are available in the calendar below.

Class Description

The United States is a society that has historically preferred to think of itself in class-less terms as a land of economic opportunity. Yet, social class remains a central social fault line in the U.S. even if often discussed in other terms. This course will explore the experiences and understandings of class found among Americans positioned in different ways along the U.S. social spectrum. This class relies heavily upon narratives—whether in the form of oral histories, memoirs, novels or "auto-ethnographies"—to explore how class is experienced by people in their day-to-day lives. In addition, this class examines a variety of classic frameworks useful in theorizing social class and considers how class interacts with other forms of social difference such as race and gender. Many of the narratives used in this course point to key moments in U.S. history in which class relations have come to be reconfigured in new ways.

Course Requirements and Grading

Grading criteria.
REQUIREMENTS	PERCENTAGES
Attendance and participation	10%
First essay (5-7 pages)	30%
Second essay (4-5 pages)	20%
Final essay (7-10 pages)	40%

Attendance

Attendance at class is crucial given that this class meets only once a week. (Please note: If you miss more than 1 class session without permission of the instructor, your grade will be lowered [½ of a letter grade for every two classes]). Course materials must be read for the assigned day in class and participation in class discussion will count for 10% of your grade.

Written Assignments

A 5-7 page paper due 5 days after Ses #6 and worth 30% of your grade. This paper will be on an assigned topic and will analyze various theoretical frameworks used to understand class.
A second 4-5 page paper due 2 days after Ses #10 and worth 20% of the grade. For the second paper, each student will write about class in one of two ways:
- by offering an analysis of class dynamics found in 2-3 films or in music lyrics of the students' choosing, or
- by writing an "auto-ethnography" based on a student's personal observations either at school or home.
The final assignment is a 7-10 page essay on an assigned topic due in Ses #13. The final essay is worth 40% of your grade.

Required Books

Terkel, Studs. Working [1974]. New York, NY: New Press, 1997. ISBN: 9781565843424.

Alger, Horatio. Ragged Dick and Struggling Upward [1867/8]. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1985. ISBN: 9780140390339.

Hamper, Ben. Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing, 1992. ISBN: 9780446394000.

Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez: An Autobiography. Boston, MA: D. R. Godine, 1982. ISBN: 9780879234188.

Sittenfeld, Curtis. Prep: A Novel. New York, NY: Random House, 2005. ISBN: 9781400062317.

DeParle, Jason. American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Penguin, 2005. ISBN: 9780143034377.

Recommended Citation

For any use or distribution of these materials, please cite as follows:

Calendar

Course calendar.
SES #	TOPICS	KEY DATES
Introduction
1	Talking about class: Expanding inequalities in the 21st century
2	Studs Terkel's Working
3	Anthropology, narrative, and social class Doing "auto-ethnographies"
Theorizing class: Competing frameworks
4	Theories of class - Part I: Marx and Weber
5	Theories of class - Part II: Bourdieu and post-structuralism
6	Intersecting identities: Class, race, and gender	First paper due 5 days after Ses #6
Narratives of class in the U.S.
7	Searching for the American dream: Narratives and counter-narratives of upward mobility
8	Class and race in black women's auto-biographies from the 1930s and 1940s
9	The post World War II middle class
10	On the American Assembly Line: A vanishing industrial working class?	Second paper due 2 days after Ses #10
11	The Worlds of the rich
12	Up and down: From climbing the social ladder to a fear of falling
13	Welfare and the politics of the U.S. "underclass"
Conclusion
14	The politics of red and blue, rural and urban, and a widening social gap	Final paper due

Readings

This section features the required books as well as a listing of specific readings and films by session.

Required Books

Amazon logo Terkel, Studs. Working [1974]. New York, NY: New Press, 1997. ISBN: 9781565843424.

Amazon logo Alger, Horatio. Ragged Dick and Struggling Upward [1867/8]. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Penguin Classics, 1985. ISBN: 9780140390339. The e-texts are also available at Project Gutenberg: Ragged Dick, Struggling Upward.

Amazon logo Hamper, Ben. Rivethead: Tales from the Assembly Line. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Grand Central Publishing, 1992. ISBN: 9780446394000.

Amazon logo Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory: The Education of Richard Rodriguez: An Autobiography. Boston, MA: D. R. Godine, 1982. ISBN: 9780879234188.

Amazon logo Sittenfeld, Curtis. Prep: A Novel. New York, NY: Random House, 2005. ISBN: 9781400062317.

Amazon logo DeParle, Jason. American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids and a Nation's Drive to End Welfare. Reprint ed. New York, NY: Penguin, 2005. ISBN: 9780143034377.

Readings and Films by Session

Course readings.
SES #	TOPICS	FILMS	READINGS
Introduction
1	Talking about class: Expanding inequalities in the 21st century	(no film)	Class Matters, a special series by The New York Times . Dash, Eric. "Off to the Races Again, Leaving Many Behind." The New York Times, April 6, 2006. DePalma, Anthony. "15 Years on the Bottom Rung." The New York Times, May 26, 2005. Johnston, David Cay. "Richest Are Leaving Even the Rich Far Behind." The New York Times, June 5, 2005. Scott, Janny, and David Leonhardt. "Shadowy Lines That Still Divide." The New York Times, May 15, 2005. Wessel, David. "As Rich-Poor Gap Widens in U.S., Class Mobility Stalls." The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2005.
2	Studs Terkel's Working	People Like Us	Working. Introduction, Books 3, 5 (skip the third section), 8, and 9 (pp. 521-543 only). People Like Us. PBS.
3	Anthropology, narrative, and social class Doing "auto-ethnographies"	American Tongues	Reed-Danahay, Deborah. "Introduction." In Auto-Ethnography: Rewriting the Self and the Social. New York, NY: Berg, 1997. ISBN: 9781859739754. Ewick, Patricia, and Susan Silbey. "Subversive Stories and Hegemonic Tales: Toward a Sociology of Narrative." Law and Society Review 29, no. 2 (1995): 197-226. American Tongues. Directed by Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker, 1987.
Theorizing class: Competing frameworks
4	Theories of class - Part I: Marx and Weber	(no film)	Williams, Raymond. "Class." In Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society [1976]. Revised ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 1985, pp. 60-69. ISBN: 9780195204698. Marx, Karl, and Frederick Engels. Manifesto of the Communist Party. Weber, Max. "Class, Status, Party." In From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology [1905]. Edited by H. H. Gerth and C. Wright Mills. New York, NY: Routledge, 2007. ISBN: 9780415436663. ———. "The Spirit of Capitalism." In The Protestant Ethnic and the Spirit of Capitalism. New ed. Translated by Stephen Kalberg. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 2002. ISBN: 9780631230816.
5	Theories of class - Part II: Bourdieu and post-structuralism	(no film)	Bourdieu, Pierre. "The Aristocracy of Culture." In Distinction: A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste. Translated by Richard Nice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007, pp. 11-96. ISBN: 9780674212770. Gibson-Graham, J. K. "Class and the Politics of Identity," and "Towards a New Class Politics of Distribution." Chapters 3 and 8 in The End of Capitalism (As We Knew It): A Feminist Critique of Political Economy. Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishing, 1996. ISBN: 9781557868633.
6	Intersecting identities: Class, race, and gender	Paris is Burning	Ortner, Sherry. "Reading America: Preliminary Notes on Class and Culture." In Recapturing Anthropology: Working in the Present. Edited by Richard G. Fox. Santa Fe, NM: School of American Research Press, 1991. ISBN: 9780933452787. Gregory, Steven. "The Changing Significance of Race and Class in an African-American Community." American Ethnologist 19, no. 2 (1992): 255-274. Paris is Burning. Directed by Jennie Livingston, 1992.
Narratives of class in the U.S.
7	Searching for the American dream: Narratives and counter-narratives of upward mobility	Modern Times	Alger, Horatio, Jr. Ragged Dick and Struggling Upward. Especially pp. 3-132 (it's very quick reading) as well as the oral history selections. Holt, Hamilton, ed. The Life Stories of Undistinguished Americans as Told by Themselves. New York, NY: Routledge, 1999. ISBN: 9780415925105. Modern Times. Directed by Charlie Chaplin, 1936.
8	Class and race in black women's auto-biographies from the 1930s and 1940s	(no film)	Hurston, Zora Neale. Dust Tracks on a Track [1942]. New York, NY: Harper Perennial Modern Classics, 2006, chapters 1-4, 8, 9, and 12. ISBN: 9780060854089. Angelou, Maya. I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. New York, NY: Bantam Books, 1969, introduction, chapters 1-5, 7-10, 15, 18, 23, 25, and 28. ISBN: 9780553139044.
9	The post World War II middle class	The Graduate	Mills, C. Wright. White Collar: The American Middle Classes [1951]. 50th anniversary ed. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002, chapters 4 and 10-12. ISBN: 9780195157086. Cheever, John. "The Worm in the Apple," and "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill." In The Stories of John Cheever. New York, NY: Vintage, 2000. ISBN: 9780375724428. The Graduate. Directed by Mike Nichols, 1967.
10	On the American Assembly Line: A vanishing industrial working class?	Roger and Me	Hamper, Ben. Rivethead. Roger and Me. Directed by Michael Moore, 1989.
11	The Worlds of the rich	Born Rich	Sittenfeld, Curtis. Prep: A Novel. Born Rich. Directed by Jamie Johnson, 2003.
12	Up and down: From climbing the social ladder to a fear of falling	(no film)	Rodriguez, Richard. Hunger of Memory.
13	Welfare and the politics of the U.S. "underclass"	When the Levees Broke	DeParle, Jason. American Dream: Three Women, Ten Kids, and A Nation's Drive to End Welfare. (Selections) When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts. Directed by Spike Lee, 2006.
Conclusion
14	The politics of red and blue, rural and urban, and a widening social gap	(no film)	(no readings)