Fall 2024 | Princeton University
This course examines the intersection of social class and culture—both the popular culture of movies, TV, music, etc., and “culture” in the anthropological sense as the shared way of life of a people. Although the topic has wider application, we will focus here primarily on the contemporary American scene. The course is divided into four main sections. First, we introduce the concepts of class, culture and a few other key concepts. Second, we dissect the cultures of each of the classes within American society, beginning with the “Old” and “New Money” classes, the “New Class” of intelligentsia, the much-invoked Middle Classes, the iconic Working Class, and continuing through the poverty-stricken Lower Classes. Third, we ask to what extent people’s identities, relationships, or chances for social mobility are shaped by their class culture. Is there a “culture of poverty” or is “cultural capital” the right concept to explain social reproduction? Finally, we look at high and popular culture as well as mass media, paying close attention to patterns of cultural consumption (“taste”) and ask in particular about their role in reproducing the class structure. Can mass culture inspire resistance, or does it only serve to reinforce existing hierarchies?
General
Part I: Basic Concepts
What is social class? Are there distinct social classes? What is the difference between a gradational versus a relational approach to class? How does “status” relate to class? How do we understand culture? Here we get an introduction to the tricky concept of “habitus,” which will underlie much of our subsequent discussions of class cultures.
Sep 09: Social Class and Status
Readings:
[\a] Dennis Gilbert, “Social Class in America,” from The American Class Structure in an Age of Growing Inequality.
Sep 11: Culture and Habitus
Readings:
[\c] Matt Wray, Introduction, from Cultural Sociology: An Introductory Reader.
[\a] David Swartz, “The Sociology of Habit: The Perspective of Pierre Bourdieu.”
Part II: Class Cultures
Do classes have distinct cultures? Here we examine the peculiar cultural attributes and lifestyles which belong to each social class. Particular attention will be paid to the transition to adulthood within each class, as this is often the crucial life stage in which cultural background intersects with class trajectories.
Sep 16: The Upper Class: Old Money
Readings:
[\c] Tad Friend, “Tomatoes,” from Cheerful Money: Me, My Family and the Last Days of Wasp Splendor.
[\c] Nelson W. Aldrich, Jr., “The Composition of Old Money,” from Old Money: The Mythology of America’s Upper Classes.
Sep 18: The Upper Class: New Money
Readings:
[\a] Rosita Armytage, “Old Money, New Money,” from Big Capital, the Micropolitics of Wealth in Pakistan.
[\c] Rachel Sherman, “Parenting Privilege,” from Uneasy Street: The Anxieties of Affluence.
Sep 23: The “New” Class
Readings:
[\c] David Brooks, “The Rise of the Educated Class,” from Bobos in Paradise: The New Upper Class and How They Got There.
[\c] Charles Murray, “Our Kind of People,” from Coming Apart: The State of White America 1960-2010.
Sep 25: The American Middle Class
Readings:
[\a] Annette Lareau, “The Hectic Pace of Concerted Cultivation: Garrett Tallinger,” from Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race and Family Life.
[\c] Marc Egnal, “Anxious Conformists 1941-1960,” from A Mirror for History: How Novels and Art Reflect the Evolution of Middle-Class America.
Sep 30: Middle Class in Different Contexts
Readings:
[\a] Karyn Lacy, “Race and Class-Based Identities: Strategic Assimilation in Middle-Class Suburbia,” from Blue Chip Black: Race, Class and Status in the New Black Middle Class.
[\a] Jennifer D. Ortegren, “Arranging Marriage, Negotiating Dharma,” from Middle-Class Dharma.
Oct 02: The Working Class
Readings:
[\a] Jack Metzgar, “There is a Genuine Working-Class Culture,” from Bridging the Divide: Working-Class Culture in a Middle-Class Society.
[\c] Andrew J. Cherlin, “The Would-Be Working Class Today,” from Labor’s Love Lost: The Rise and Fall of the Working-Class Family in America.
Oct 07: The Rural Lower Class
Readings:
[\a] Oscar Lewis, “The Culture of Poverty.”
[\c] Kathryn J. Edin and H. Luke Shaefer, “A World Apart,” from $2.00 a Day: Living on Almost Nothing in America.
Oct 09: The Urban Lower Class
Readings:
[\c] Stefanie DeLuca, Susan Clampet-Lundquist, and Kathryn Edin, “Following My Passion: How Identity Projects Help Youth Beat the Street and Stay on Track,” from Coming of Age in the Other America.
Part III: Culture and Class in Action
In Part II we investigated each social class individually. In this section, we see what happens when the system is set in motion.
Oct 21: Insiders/Outsiders in Elite Colleges
Readings:
[\a] Anthony Jack, “Come with Me to Italy!” from The Privileged Poor: How Elite Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students.
Oct 23: Mobility Thwarted at Indiana University
Readings:
[\c] Elizabeth A. Armstrong, “Strivers, Creaming, and the Blocked Mobility Pathway,” from Paying for the Party: How College Maintains Inequality.
Oct 28: Cultural Capital and Elite Reproduction
Readings:
[\c] Lauren A. Rivera, “Beginning the Interview: Finding a Fit,” and “Talking It Out: Deliberating Merit,” from Pedigree: How Elite Students Get Elite Jobs.
Oct 30: Mobility and Class Consciousness
Readings:
[\c] Selections from Class Lives: Stories from across Our Economic Divide.
Nov 04: Class Backgrounds and Intimate Relationships
Readings:
[\a] Jessi Streib, “Accounts of Crossing the Class Divide,” and “Money,” from The Power of the Past: Understanding Cross-Class Marriages.
Nov 06: Class Sorting in Congregations
Readings:
[\a] Timothy J. Nelson, “At Ease with Our Own Kind,” from McCloud and Mirola, Religion and Class in America: Culture, History, and Politics.
Part IV: Popular Culture, Mass Media and Social Class
High culture, low culture and everything in between—what are the class dynamics inherent in the consumption of art, music, literature, fashion and other components of the aesthetic life?
Nov 11: Media and the Myth of Classlessness
Readings:
[\c] Benjamin DeMott, The Imperial Middle: Why Americans Can’t Think Straight about Class, chapters 3–5.
Nov 13: Critical Theory
Readings:
[\c] David Held, Introduction to Critical Theory, chapter 3.
Nov 18: Class and Cultural Consumption 1
Readings:
[\c] Herbert Gans, Popular Culture & High Culture, New Introduction and chapter 2.
[\c] David Brooks, “Consumption,” in Bobos in Paradise, pp. 54–61, 84–102.
Nov 20: Class and Cultural Consumption 2
Readings:
[\a] Douglas Holt, “Does Cultural Capital Structure American Consumption?”
[\a] Richard Peterson, “The Rise and Fall of Highbrow Snobbery as a Status Marker.”
Nov 25: Class and Cultural Consumption in East Asia
Readings:
[\c] John Osburg, “From Fruit Plates to License Plates: Consumption, Status, and Recognition Among Chengdu’s Elite,” from Anxious Wealth: Money and Morality among China’s New Rich.
[\a] Hagen Koo, “Consumption and Class Distinction,” from Privilege and Anxiety: The Korean Middle Class in the Global Era.
Dec 02: Popular Culture and Class Consciousness
Readings:
[\c] Dick Hebdige, Subculture: The Meaning of Style, chapters 4–6.