{"id":515,"date":"2010-08-28T07:10:19","date_gmt":"2010-08-28T14:10:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/?page_id=515"},"modified":"2010-08-28T11:33:34","modified_gmt":"2010-08-28T18:33:34","slug":"orals-reading-list-culture-and-capitalism","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/orals-reading-list-culture-and-capitalism\/","title":{"rendered":"Capitalism and American Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

Capitalism and American Life, ca. 1850\u20132000:<\/strong>
\nEncounters with the Market in its Many Guises<\/strong>
\nOral examination list
\nExaminer: Professor Jean-Christophe Agnew
\nExam administered March 2005<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a truism that capitalism affects all aspects of our lives in American culture. But what does that mean, exactly? How does a market mentality crop up in our cultural environment? Does its manifestation change according to setting? Where, and in what ways, can we see the economic in the everyday?<\/p>\n

In this list, I attempt to pin down the ways that a market mentality interpolates itself into our lives over time and space. By dividing the list into modes of encounter, I\u2019ve tried to draw the focus to the ways in which Americans have come in contact with capitalism-inflected settings in tangible and meaningful ways. I also hope that by pinning each mode of encounter to a particular space, I can indulge my interest in the corporeal aspects of life in a capitalist culture, in the way that bodies physically move through space.<\/p>\n

By \u201cmarket mentality\u201d I mean a tendency to assign market-driven values to those objects, people, or interactions that surround us. In my view, these values could be specifically monetary (as in, for example, the practice of selling blood). Or they could be part of a self-enclosed system that mimics an economy (as in, for example, a bookkeeping system of energy expended and consumed).<\/p>\n

As I\u2019ve composed and thought through my list, I\u2019ve had (loosely) in mind Bourdieu\u2019s notions of \u201chabitus\u201d and \u201cpractice.\u201d By keeping track of the ways that people have interacted with their cultural environment, I\u2019ve tried to model the horizons of Americans\u2019 perceived possibilities at different points in time.<\/p>\n

At the store<\/strong>
\nOf course, we expect to find a market mentality at the store. But what happens to us when we shop? Do we lose ourselves or find ourselves? Do we become subjects of hegemony or do we play subversively with identities? What role does shopping play in our lives, and how has this changed over time? <\/em><\/p>\n

Agnew, J-C. \u201cComing Up for Air: Consumer Culture in Historical Perspective,\u201d in J. Brewer and R. Porter (eds.), Consumption and the World of Goods<\/em>. New York: Routledge, 1993.<\/p>\n

Curti, M. \u201cChanging Concept of ‘Human Nature’ in the Literature of<\/p>\n

American Advertising.\u201d Business History Review<\/em> 41 (Winter 1967).<\/p>\n

Fiske, J. \u201cRadical shopping in Los Angeles: race, media and the sphere of consumption.\u201d Media, Culture and Society: Relations of Consumption<\/em> 16: 3 (1994).<\/p>\n

Manring, M. M. Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima<\/em>. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1998.<\/p>\n

Strasser, Susan. Satisfaction Guaranteed: The Making of the American Mass Market<\/em>. New York: Pantheon Books, 1989.<\/p>\n

At home (and at play)<\/strong>
\nWhat space does capitalist society allot to the home? Do we see ourselves differently at home and away? What distinctions do we make between public and private and between work and play?<\/em><\/p>\n

Garvey, E. G. The Adman in the Parlor: Magazines and the Gendering of<\/em><\/p>\n

Consumer Culture, 1880s to 1910s<\/em>. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.<\/p>\n

Belk, R. W. \u201cPossessions and the Extended Self,\u201d Journal of Consumer Research<\/em> 15 (1988).<\/p>\n

Clarke, A. \u201cTupperware in the 1950s: Gender and Consumption,\u201d in R.<\/p>\n

Silverstone (ed.), Visions of Suburbia<\/em>. New York: Routledge, 1997.<\/p>\n

Dannefer, D. \u201cRationality and Passion in Private Experience: Modern Consciousness and the Social World of Old-Car Collectors,\u201d Social Problems<\/em> 27 (1980).<\/p>\n

Gelber, S.\u00a0 \u201cA Job You Can’t Lose: Work and Hobbies in the Great Depression,\u201d Journal of Social History<\/em> 24 (1990).<\/p>\n

Rosenzweig, Roy. Eight Hours for What We Will: Workers and Leisure in an Industrial City, 1871\u20131920<\/em>. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983.<\/p>\n

Strasser, S. Never Done: A History of American Housework<\/em>. New York: Pantheon, 1982.<\/p>\n

Zelizer, Viviana A. Morals and Markets: The Development of Life Insurance in the United States<\/em>. New York: Columbia University Press, 1979.<\/p>\n

\u00ad\u2014\u2014. Pricing the Priceless Child: The Changing Social Value of Children<\/em>. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.<\/p>\n

At work<\/strong>
\n What has work asked of us, what have we brought to it, and how does that affect our \u201cprivate\u201d selves?<\/em><\/p>\n

Brown, Elspeth H. The Corporate Eye: Photography and the Rationalization of American Commercial Culture, 1884\u20131929<\/em>. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.<\/p>\n

Glickman, L. B. A Living Wage: American Workers and the Making of Consumer Society<\/em>. Ithica, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997.<\/p>\n

Hochschild, Arlie Russell. The Managed Heart: Commercialization of Human Feeling.<\/em> Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.<\/p>\n

Johnson, Walter. Soul by Soul: Life Inside the Antebellum Slave Market.<\/em> Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2001.<\/p>\n

Rabinbach, Anson. The Human Motor: Energy, Fatigue, and the Origins of Modernity<\/em>. New York: BasicBooks, 1990.<\/p>\n

Thompson, E. P. \u201cTime, Work-Discipline and Industrial Capitalism.\u201d Past and Present<\/em> 38 (1967), 56-97.<\/p>\n

In our bodies<\/strong>
\nDoes capitalism have an effect on the way we see our bodies? What about different modes of capitalism \u2014 can we identify corresponding conceptions of the body? Do we keep parts of our bodies sacrosanct from the market, or are our entire bodies subject to economic factors?<\/em><\/p>\n

Bathrick, S. K. \u201cThe Female Colossus: the Body as Facade and Threshold,\u201d in J. Gaines and C. Herzog (eds.), Fabrications: Costume and the Female Body<\/em>. London: Routledge, 1990.<\/p>\n

Birken, L. Consuming Desire: Sexual Science and the Emergence of a Culture of Abundance, 1871-1914<\/em>. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1981.<\/p>\n

Falk, P. The Consuming Body<\/em>. London: Sage, 1994.<\/p>\n

Featherstone, M. \u201cThe body in consumer society,\u201d in M. Featherstone, M. Hepworth and B. Turner (eds.), The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory<\/em>. London: Sage, 1991.<\/p>\n

Haraway, \u201cA Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century,” in Simians, Cyborgs and Women: The Reinvention of Nature<\/em>. New York; Routledge, 1991.<\/p>\n

Lowe, Donald. The Body in Late-Capitalist USA.<\/em> Durham: Duke University Press, 1995.<\/p>\n

Meyerowitz, Joanne. How Sex Changed: A History of Transsexuality in the United States<\/em>. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2002.<\/p>\n

Sklansky, Jeffrey. The Soul\u2019s Economy: Market Society and Selfhood in American Thought, 1820-1920<\/em>. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002.<\/p>\n

Titmuss, Richard. The Gift Relationship: From Human Blood to Social Policy<\/em>. New York: Vintage Books, 1972.<\/p>\n

Turner, B. \u201cRecent Developments in the Theory of the Body.\u201d In M. Featherstone, M. Hepworth and B. Turner (eds.), The Body: Social Process and Cultural Theory<\/em>. London: Sage, 1991.<\/p>\n

In public<\/strong>
\nIs the public sphere, too, colonized by market forces? If so, how does that affect how we see ourselves as citizens? As members of a collectivity?<\/em><\/p>\n

Cohen, Lizabeth. A Consumer\u2019s Republic: The Politics of Mass Consumption in Postwar America.<\/em> New York: Knopf, 2003.<\/p>\n

Crawford, M. \u201cThe World in a Shopping Mall,\u201d in M. Sorkin (ed.), Variations on a Theme Park: The New American City and the End of Public Space<\/em>. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994.<\/p>\n

Livingston, James. Pragmatism, Feminism, and Democracy: Rethinking the Politics of American Democracy<\/em>. New York: Routledge, 2001.<\/p>\n

Ryan, Mary. Women in Public: Between Banners and Ballots, 1825\u00ad\u20131880<\/em>. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1990.<\/p>\n

Storrs, Landon. Civilizing Capitalism: The National Consumer\u2019s League, Women\u2019s Activism, and Labor Standards in the New Deal Era<\/em>. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Capitalism and American Life, ca. 1850\u20132000: Encounters with the Market in its Many Guises Oral examination list Examiner: Professor Jean-Christophe Agnew Exam administered March 2005 It\u2019s a truism that capitalism affects all aspects of our lives in American culture. But what does that mean, exactly? How does a market mentality crop up in our cultural […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-515","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/515\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":540,"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/515\/revisions\/540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/miriamposner.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}