Sociology 34
Social Class
Fall 2002
Ron Lembo
This course will explore various ways that class matters in the United States. Historical
accounts will be used in conjunction with sociological theories to discuss the formation
of classes, including discourses and myths of class, in American society. Class will then
serve as a lens to examine the origins and characteristics of social stratification and
inequality in the U.S. The bulk of the course material will focus on more contemporary
issues of class structure and class culture, paying particular attention to relations
between and across classes as well as to how social class is actually lived out in
American society, including the role class plays in the formation of identity and the ways
it lends coherence (or not) to daily life. Among other things, we will explore the role that
class plays in the reproduction of power and privilege as well as the ways that it figures
in challenging that power and privilege. Wherever possible, attention will be paid to the
intersection of class relations and practices with race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality,
among other things. Sociological and anthropological studies, literature,
autobiographies, and films, and other kinds of accounts will be used to discuss these
issues.
Readings:
Course Reader, available for purchase at Anthropology-Sociology departmental office,
205 Morgan Hall.
Brooks, David, 2000, Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got
There, NY: Touchstone Books.
Roediger, David, 1991, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American
Working Class, NY: Verso Press.
Sassen, Saskis, 1998, Globalization and Its Discontents: Essays on the New Mobility of
People and Money, NY: The New Press.
Required books are available for purchase at Atticus Bookstore, 8 Main Street,
Amherst, and on reserve in Frost Library.
Course Requirements:
There will be a take-home midterm and final exam, and a term paper. In the term paper,
you will focus on the empirical study of some aspect of social class (your choice, with
direction and guidance both from me and the course material). Approximate length is
twelve pages; long enough for yhou to demonstrate some depth of analysis in your
account of class.
Over the semester, you will be asked to view selected films and videos as part of the
course requirements. I have reser ed 217 Webster on Mondays and Merrill 3 on
Wednesdays, at 4:00 and 7:30, for this purpose.
Approximate Schedule:
*Readings with an preceding asterisk are in the Course Reader.
Weeks 1-3, September 3-19: Situating Ourselves with Respect to Class
Readings:
*Williams, Raymond, 1976, "Class," Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society,
NY: Oxford University Press.
*Thompson, E.P., 1966, "Preface," The Making of the English Working Class, NY:
Vintage.
Film: People Like Us: Social Class in America, 2001, Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker,
Hohokus, NJ: Center for New American Media.
*Domhoff, G. William, 1998, "The Corporate Community and the Growth of Coalitions,"
and "The Corporate Community and the Upper Class," Who Rules America: Power and
Politics in the Year 2000, Mountain View, CA: Mayfield Press.
*MacLeod, Jay, 1995, "Social Reproductoin in Theoretical Perspective," Ain't No Makin'
It: Aspirations and Attainment in a Low-Income Neighborhood, Boulder, CO: Westview
Press.
Film: American Dream at Groton, 1988, WETA-TV and the Smithsonian Institution,
Washington, DC.
Weeks 4-8, September 24-October 31: Mobilities/Inequalities
Readings:
Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness.
*Oliver, Melvin L. and Thomas M. Shapiro, 1997, "A Story of Two Nations: Race and
Wealth," and "The Structuring of Racial Inequality in American Life," Black Wealth/White
Wealth: A New Perspective on Racial Equality, NY: Routledge.
Film: Black and White, 1999, James Toback, Palm Pictures.
*Cohen, Lizabeth, 1990, "Encountering Mass Culture," and "Contested Loyalties in the
Workplace," Making a New Deal: Industrial Workers in Chicago, 1919-1939, Cambridge
University Press.
*Lowe, Lisa, 1996, "Immigration, Citizenship, Racialization: Asian American Critique,"
and "Imagining Los Angeles in the Productoin of Multiculturalism" Immigrant Acts: On
Asian American Cultural Politics, NC: Duke University Press.
*Walkowitz, Daniel J., 1999, "Locating the Middle Class," Working with Class: Social
Workers and the Politics of Middle Class Identity, Chapel Hill, NC: University of North
Carolina Press.
*Wacquant, Lois J.D., 1991, "Making Class: The Middle Class(es) in Social Theory and
Social Structure," in McNall, Scott G., Rhonda F. Levine, and Rick Fantasia, eds.,
Bringing Class Back In: Contemporary and Historical Perspectives, Boulder, CO:
Westview Press.
*Newman, Katherine, 1993, "The End of Entitlement," "Winners and Losers in the
Eighties and Nineties," and "The Making of the Boomers," Declining Fortunes: The
Withering of the American Dream, NY: Basic Books.
Film: Good Will Hunting, Ben Afleck and Matt Damon, directed by Gus Van Sant,
Burbank, CA: Miramax Films...
Weeks 9 and 10, November 5-14: Globalization and Class Transformations
Readings:
Sassen, Saskia, Globalizatoin and Its Discontents.
Weeks 11-14, November 19-December 10: "Post" Middle-Class Society and Culture
Readings:
Brooks, Bobos in Paradise.
*Wilson, William Julius, 1996, "From Institutional to Jobless Ghettos," and "Societal
Changes and Vulnerable Neighborhoods," When Work Disappears: The World of the
New Urban Poor, NY: Knopf.
*Fine, Michelle, and Lois Weis, 1998, "Workiong without a Net: Poor Mothers Raising
Their Families," and "Reflections on Urban Schooling," The Unknown City: The Lives of
Poor and Working-Class Young Adults, Boston: Beacon Press.
*Mahler, Sarah J., 1995, "The Construction of Marginality," American Dreaming:
Immigrant Life on the Margin, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
*Parrenas, Rhacel Salazar, 2001, "Contradictory Class Mobility: The Politics of
Domestic Work in Globalization," and "The Dislocation of Nonbelonging," Servants of
Globalization: Women, Migration, and Domestic Work, Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press.
*Mahler, Sarah J., 1997, "Immigrants and the American Dream," American Dreaming:
Immigrant Life on the Margins, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Term Papers are Due Monday, December 16.