Living with Class

Living with Class PDF Author: R. Scapp
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137326794
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Get Book

Book Description
A philosophical-cultural exploration, this book expands the discussion of "class" from a novel perspective. Following the current debates about wealth and class, the contributors address the social and cultural phenomena of class from a uniquely innovative philosophical approach and reconsider philosophical "givens" within the context of culture.

Living with Class

Living with Class PDF Author: R. Scapp
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137326794
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 347

Get Book

Book Description
A philosophical-cultural exploration, this book expands the discussion of "class" from a novel perspective. Following the current debates about wealth and class, the contributors address the social and cultural phenomena of class from a uniquely innovative philosophical approach and reconsider philosophical "givens" within the context of culture.

Living Class in Urban India

Living Class in Urban India PDF Author: Sara Dickey
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813583942
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 283

Get Book

Book Description
Many Americans still envision India as rigidly caste-bound, locked in traditions that inhibit social mobility. In reality, class mobility has long been an ideal, and today globalization is radically transforming how India’s citizens perceive class. Living Class in Urban India examines a nation in flux, bombarded with media images of middle-class consumers, while navigating the currents of late capitalism and the surges of inequality they can produce. Anthropologist Sara Dickey puts a human face on the issue of class in India, introducing four people who live in the “second-tier” city of Madurai: an auto-rickshaw driver, a graphic designer, a teacher of high-status English, and a domestic worker. Drawing from over thirty years of fieldwork, she considers how class is determined by both subjective perceptions and objective conditions, documenting Madurai residents’ palpable day-to-day experiences of class while also tracking their long-term impacts. By analyzing the intertwined symbolic and economic importance of phenomena like wedding ceremonies, religious practices, philanthropy, and loan arrangements, Dickey’s study reveals the material consequences of local class identities. Simultaneously, this gracefully written book highlights the poignant drive for dignity in the face of moralizing class stereotypes. Through extensive interviews, Dickey scrutinizes the idioms and commonplaces used by residents to justify class inequality and, occasionally, to subvert it. Along the way, Living Class in Urban India reveals the myriad ways that class status is interpreted and performed, embedded in everything from cell phone usage to religious worship.

Living with Racism

Living with Racism PDF Author: Joe R. Feagin
Publisher: Beacon Press
ISBN: 9780807009253
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 420

Get Book

Book Description
“One step from suicide” was the first response to Joe Feagin and Mel Sikes’ question about how it feels to be middle-class and African-American. Despite the prevalent white view that racism is diminishing, this groundbreaking study exposes the depth and relentlessness of the racism that middle-class Black Americans face every day. From the supermarket to the office, the authors show, African Americans are routinely subjected to subtle humiliations and overt hostility across white America. Based on the sometimes harrowing testimony of more than 200 Black respondents, Living with Racism shows how discrimination targets middle-class African Americans, impeding their economic and social progress, and wearying their spirit. A man is refused service in a restaurant. A woman is harassed while shopping. A little girl is taunted in a public pool by white children. These are everyday incidents encountered by millions of African Americans. But beyond presenting a litany of abuse, the authors argue that racism is deeply imbedded in American institutions and that the cumulative effect of these episodes is profoundly damaging. They argue that discrimination is experienced by their interviewees not as separate incidents, but as a process demanding their constant vigilance and shaping their personal, professional, and psychological lives. With powerful insight into the daily workings of discrimination, this important study can help all Americans confront the racism of our institutions and our culture.

Cohabitation Nation

Cohabitation Nation PDF Author: Ms. Sharon Sassler
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520962109
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 296

Get Book

Book Description
“We have fun and we enjoy each other’s company, so why shouldn’t we just move in together?”—Lauren, from Cohabitation Nation Living together is a typical romantic rite of passage in the United States today. In fact, census data shows a 37 percent increase in couples who choose to commit to and live with one another, forgoing marriage. And yet we know very little about this new “normal” in romantic life. When do people decide to move in together, why do they do so, and what happens to them over time? Drawing on in-depth interviews, Sharon Sassler and Amanda Jayne Miller provide an inside view of how cohabiting relationships play out before and after couples move in together, using couples’ stories to explore the he said/she said of romantic dynamics. Delving into hot-button issues, such as housework, birth control, finances, and expectations for the future, Sassler and Miller deliver surprising insights about the impact of class and education on how relationships unfold. Showcasing the words, thoughts, and conflicts of the couples themselves, Cohabitation Nation offers a riveting and sometimes counterintuitive look at the way we live now.

White Trash

White Trash PDF Author: Nancy Isenberg
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 0143129678
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 498

Get Book

Book Description
The New York Times Bestseller, with a new preface from the author “This estimable book rides into the summer doldrums like rural electrification. . . . It deals in the truths that matter.”—Dwight Garner, The New York Times “This eye-opening investigation into our country’s entrenched social hierarchy is acutely relevant.”—O, The Oprah Magazine “White Trash will change the way we think about our past and present.” —T. J. Stiles, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Custer’s Trials In her groundbreaking bestselling history of the class system in America, Nancy Isenberg, co-author of The Problem of Democracy, takes on our comforting myths about equality, uncovering the crucial legacy of the ever-present, always embarrassing—if occasionally entertaining—poor white trash. “When you turn an election into a three-ring circus, there’s always a chance that the dancing bear will win,” says Isenberg of the political climate surrounding Sarah Palin. And we recognize how right she is today. Yet the voters that put Trump in the White House have been a permanent part of our American fabric, argues Isenberg. The wretched and landless poor have existed from the time of the earliest British colonial settlement to today's hillbillies. They were alternately known as “waste people,” “offals,” “rubbish,” “lazy lubbers,” and “crackers.” By the 1850s, the downtrodden included so-called “clay eaters” and “sandhillers,” known for prematurely aged children distinguished by their yellowish skin, ragged clothing, and listless minds. Surveying political rhetoric and policy, popular literature and scientific theories over four hundred years, Isenberg upends assumptions about America’s supposedly class-free society––where liberty and hard work were meant to ensure real social mobility. Poor whites were central to the rise of the Republican Party in the early nineteenth century, and the Civil War itself was fought over class issues nearly as much as it was fought over slavery. Reconstruction pitted poor white trash against newly freed slaves, which factored in the rise of eugenics–-a widely popular movement embraced by Theodore Roosevelt that targeted poor whites for sterilization. These poor were at the heart of New Deal reforms and LBJ’s Great Society; they haunt us in reality TV shows like Here Comes Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Marginalized as a class, white trash have always been at or near the center of major political debates over the character of the American identity. We acknowledge racial injustice as an ugly stain on our nation’s history. With Isenberg’s landmark book, we will have to face the truth about the enduring, malevolent nature of class as well.

Standard of Living

Standard of Living PDF Author: Marina Moskowitz
Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
ISBN: 9780801889738
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Coined in 1902, the term "standard of living" grew popular in early twentieth-century America. Though its exact definition remained ambiguous, it most often reflected the middle class and material comfort. The term was not a precise measure of how people lived. Instead, it embodied the ideal of how middle-class Americans wanted to live. With increasing wages and the mass production of consumer goods, the standard of living became an important expression of the shared national culture that emerged in the Gilded Age and Progressive Era. But what material and social components constituted this standard? Who decided what they were and how they were to be promoted? In Standard of Living, Marina Moskowitz explores these questions, focusing on the relationship between middle-class identity and material culture through four case studies. In one, she examines the incorporation of silverplate flatware into the daily rituals of American life. Mass production made this former luxury item affordable, while advertising, etiquette books, and home advice columns stressed its value as a family heirloom and confirmed its place in the middle-class dining room. Moskowitz then turns her attention to the bathroom and the proliferation of indoor sanitation, bathroom fixtures, and a hygiene industry equally interested in profits and public health. Home ownership contributed an essential element of this standard, and Moskowitz next charts the mail-order home industry, which sold not just kit houses but also the very idea of owning a home. Concluding with a look at zoning and urban planning as a means of fostering and protecting the standard of living for whole communities, this book offers important evidence of and fresh insights into the history of the American middle class.

No Middle Class

No Middle Class PDF Author: Andrew Merritt
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780963764034
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 196

Get Book

Book Description
THE MIDDLE CLASS IS A MYTH. There is no multiple choice - no middle ground - no grey areas. The middle class is a myth, thought up to make room for mediocrity and indecision. From the ignorant rants of laziness, to the heinous hoarding of healthcare, the societal herd of an average mindset has taken the world by storm. A place where the poor are pampered, and the wealthy wield with vengeance a dual sword of callous and change, manipulating the pendulum of money and finance like the stroke of an artist's pen. A CHALLENGE HAS BEEN ISSUED. No one who is born-again can say that he or she is born of God yet embrace the mindset of a middle class. It's inconceivable to think that the same people who confess the redemption of the cross would settle into what amounts to the cushy comfort of financial defeat. You are either born of the first Adam or reborn of the second, who is Jesus Christ. Because He is supreme, He cannot be a subordinate to anyone or anything. The time has come to stop acting like a middle of the road, lackluster manifestation of an insufficient God. Triumph over darkness and master everything in your wake by shedding the illusion of the middle class once and for all. About the Author: Bishop Andrew Merritt grew up in Detroit, MI with his mother, Laura, and grandmother, Pauline. It was after time spent in Chicago, at the age of 24, that he was called to preach. At that time, he began learning under the ministry of Bishop William Bonner and was ordained in 1972. Bishop Merritt received a Bachelor's Degree in Theology from the Church of Christ Bible College in New Rochelle, NY, a Master's Degree of Theology from New Covenant Theological Seminary in New York, and an Honorary Doctorate of Ministry from Logos Graduate School in Jacksonville, FL. Bishop Andrew Merritt was elevated to the office of Bishop on November 24, 1990 As a community leader, Bishop has addressed civic leaders and lawmakers alike. He is one of few African American religious leaders with the honor to have met and participated in various forums with former Presidents Ronald Reagan, William Jefferson Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama. He gave the invocation for the opening session of the Michigan House of Representatives in 1989, as well as, for the October 24, 1990 session of the United States House of Representatives. In 1998, at the request of the Mayor of the City of Detroit, Bishop was one of ten pastors assembled to meet with President Clinton and lead a prayer of healing and restoration for the President and the nation. Bishop Merritt also participated in the first Congressional House-Senate Republican Faith-Based Leadership Summit and was named to the Summit Steering Committee. Other honors for which Bishop has been recognized include: 1990: Minister of the Year by the Michigan Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 1990: Co-Chair of the International Mandela Freedom Tour to the City of Detroit. 1997: Clergyman of the Year by the Michigan Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 2003: Received Key of David and the Keys to the City of Jerusalem and was consecrated as the Apostle and Gatekeeper over the Detroit Metropolitan Region.

Class

Class PDF Author: Paul Fussell
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 0671792253
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 212

Get Book

Book Description
This book describes the living-room artifacts, clothing styles, and intellectual proclivities of American classes from top to bottom.

In Search of Paradise

In Search of Paradise PDF Author: Li Zhang
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0801458196
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 264

Get Book

Book Description
A new revolution in homeownership and living has been sweeping the booming cities of China. This time the main actors on the social stage are not peasants, migrants, or working-class proletariats but middle-class professionals and entrepreneurs in search of a private paradise in a society now dominated by consumerism. No longer seeking happiness and fulfillment through collective sacrifice and socialist ideals, they hope to find material comfort and social distinction in newly constructed gated communities. This quest for the good life is profoundly transforming the physical and social landscapes of urban China. Li Zhang, who is from Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, turns a keen ethnographic eye on her hometown. She combines her analysis of larger political and social issues with fine-grained details about the profound spatial, cultural, and political effects of the shift in the way Chinese urban residents live their lives and think about themselves. In Search of Paradise is a deeply informed account of how the rise of private homeownership is reconfiguring urban space, class subjects, gender selfhood, and ways of life in the reform era. New, seemingly individualistic lifestyles mark a dramatic move away from yearning for a social utopia under Maoist socialism. Yet the privatization of property and urban living have engendered a simultaneous movement of public engagement among homeowners as they confront the encroaching power of the developers. This double movement of privatized living and public sphere activism, Zhang finds, is a distinctive feature of the cultural politics of the middle classes in contemporary China. Theoretically sophisticated and highly accessible, Zhang's account will appeal not only to those interested in China but also to anyone interested in spatial politics, middle-class culture, and postsocialist governing in a globalizing world.

Where We Stand

Where We Stand PDF Author: bell hooks
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1135956642
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 173

Get Book

Book Description
Drawing on both her roots in Kentucky and her adventures with Manhattan Coop boards, Where We Stand is a successful black woman's reflection--personal, straight forward, and rigorously honest--on how our dilemmas of class and race are intertwined, and how we can find ways to think beyond them.