Annotated Bibliography on Theories and Sub Cultures Within the Working Class
James Zeske
Class structure is something that is always up for debate due to the overlapping of different social classes. One of the hardest classes to dissect is the lower-middle class that sometimes gets confused with the working class. This bibliography focuses more on the working class and some sub cultures that surround it. Some of these sub cultures include graffiti art, dumpster diving, thrift shopping, and sustainable living. There is also an article about the lower-middle class and the struggles of trying to be a part of the middle class.
Throughout this bibliography I tried to incorporate a wide range of different sources and topics. I included books, essays, and journal articles. One book is by an anonymous writer or writers which contains material about dumpster diving, squatting, and shoplifting. A few are by artists and curators whom I am interested in and their ideas about sustainability and John Cage’s theories of experimental music and writing. I also incorporated a few philosophical journal articles relating to the idea of objects and the space around them.
This annotated bibliography is meant to function as a list of ideas surrounding the working class and other social classes that overlap. My idea was to include works that are about personal experience and ways of living, and others, which are more like research papers.
Bibliography
Anonymous. 2003. Evasion. Crimethinc.
This is a collection of memoirs by one or more authors (author anonymous) about dumpster diving, train hopping, squatting, stealing, and suburban youth. The back of the book sums it up. “We dumpstered, squatted, and shoplifted our lives back. Everything fell into place when we decided our lives were to be lived. Life serves the risk taker.”
Beuys, Joseph. 1993. Energy Plan For The Western Man. Four Walls Eight Windows Press.
This is a great collection of writings, interviews, and lectures by the artist Joseph Beuys. This book is broken up into three sections: social sculpture, Its Elements, and The Site. The first writing is a brief statement on social sculpture titled “Introduction 1979”. Mr. Beuys talks about molding and shaping the world in which we live and states “Everyone an Artist”. He also goes on about processes continuing throughout his work due to chemical reactions, fermentations, color changes, decay, and drying up. The rest of the book revolves around these theories of social sculpture and the possible changes within both the work and society.
Brown, Bill. 2001. “Thing Theory”. JSTOR Critical Inquiry Vol. 28, No. 1, Things pp. 1-22.
In this essay Bill Brown looks at a couple of Philosopher’s ideas about things including Francis Ponge, Michael Riffaterre, and Jacques Derrida. He also quotes Leo Stein as saying “Things are what we encounter, ideas are what we project”. Mr. Brown goes on about the word “things” as being ambiguous, general, and particular. He gives some examples: “Put it by that green thing in the hall”. “I need that thing you use to get at things between your teeth”. “There’s a thing about that poem that I’ll never get”. He continues to go on throughout the essay about the idea of the word “thing” and takes many different approaches such as talking about the avant-garde: Dali, Duchamp, Man Ray, Joseph Beuys, Frank O’ Hara, Robert Rauschenberg, and into popism with Claes Oldenburg.
Cage, John. 1961. Silence “Lectures and Writings by John Cage”. Wesleyan University Press.
In this collection of writings, lectures, and interviews, John Cage has some interesting ideas about experimental music and also an essay called “On Rauschenberg, Artist, and His Work”. The latter is more like poetry using the found objects in Rauschenberg’s work and some questions to flow through this ten-page essay. Next is the famous lecture on nothing followed by a lecture on something. I really enjoy the essay “Communication” which is an essay of questions. This essay has a lot to do with questioning music and aesthetics.
Costall, Alan and Dreier, Ole. 2006. Doing Things With Things “The Design and Use of Everyday Objects”. Ashgate Publishing Limited 2006.
This collection of essays deals with material objects and their interactions with humans. In one essay “The Woman Who Used Her Walking Stick as a Telephone” is about a study done on stroke patients and their multiple uses for a wheelchair, walking stick, and other walking aids. Another is called “The Cognitive Biographies of Things” and focuses on a man named Robert and his large collection of spices. He talks about the growing collection over time, the organization of spices, and the connection with cooking.
Felski, Rita. 2000. “Nothing to Declare: Identity, Shame, and the Lower Middle Class”. JSTOR Vol. 115 No. 1, Special Topic: Rereading Class pp-33-45.
Rita Felski is concerned about the lack of discussion about social class in contemporary social theory. She focuses on the blurry areas of class being the lower middle class. She states that this is a difficult class to be in due to the little more or often less wage than blue-collar industrial jobs. These are the clerical workers, technicians, and secretaries who want to be a part of the middle class but do not have the income to fit into the middle class and live that lifestyle. These people, of course, usually end up in a lot of debt. Felski brings up Marx and George Orwell to try and make clear this fuzzy area. She talks about Orwell’s books “Coming up for Air” and “A Clergyman’s Daughter” to show how he depicts families of the lower middle class.
Ferrell, Jeff. 2006. Empire of Scrounge “Inside the Urban Underground of Dumpster Diving”. New York University Press.
This book is about Mr. Ferrell’s research on dumpster diving after resigning from a tenure professor position. He starts to live on dumpstered materials and talks about the things he finds such as food, clothing, old photographs, furniture, and lots more. He also collects bottles and cans and cashes them in for money. This book is an insight on the practice of dumpster diving and the advantages of this alternative lifestyle/subculture.
Flood, Richard and Morris Frances, Curators. 2001. Zero to Infinity: Arte Povera 1962-1972. Walker Art/Center Tate.
This book focuses on an exhibition examining fourteen artists of the Arte Povera movement throughout the sixties. The show traveled to four cities throughout the U.S. between 2001 and 2003. The book starts out with essays about the exhibition and the Arte Povera movement and then on to the fourteen artists. It goes through each individual in alphabetical order and there is an artist statement and/or an interview of the artist to give insight about their philosophy. The book opens with a brief history of the Arte Povera of “Poor Art” by saying that the term was coined by the twenty-seven year old art critic Germano Celant and grew into the understanding of concept and materials. Most, if not all, of the artists in the exhibition use found materials to make conceptual constructions. Some were based on environmental issues and others dealt with object/space relationships.
Fritsch and Grallimore. 2007. Healing Appalachia “Sustainable Living Through Appropriate Technology. The University Press of Kentucky.
This book is about different ways to clean up the environment, specifically Appalachia. The topics include electric energy, energy efficiency and conservation, food, forest, land, shelter, transportation, waste, and water. The authors talk about a lot of different environmentally friendly techniques relating to the above. Some include the use of solar panels, micro hydropower, wind power, wood heating, food preservation, edible landscape, organic gardening, natural cooling, simple modes of transportation, composting, recycling, and much more.
Gastman, Rowland. 2006. Freight Train Graffiti. Sattler Abrams, NY
This book opens up with two definitions. One is “Art” which states art as “the conscious production or arrangement of sounds, colors, forms, movements, or other elements in a manner that affects the sense of beauty, specifically the production of the beautiful in a graphic or plastic modernism”. The next is graffiti, which is “an urban movement that focuses on communicating and maintaining one’s identity”. Next it talks about the history of the American railroad and the beginning of graffiti writing and how it became a culture. There are interviews and statements by graffiti writers. This movement became a culture by wanting to be known in neighborhoods for their writing style and then appeared on trains as a traveling exhibition.
Gorman, Thomas J. 2000. “Reconsidering Worlds of Pain: Life in the Working Class(es). JSTOR Sociological Forum Vol. 15, No. 4 pp. 693-717
Gorman focuses on working class families, specifically in a medium-sized northeastern city in the U.S. This research paper is to try and find out how many of these working class families have lived in or still live in worlds of pain. He puts together seven elements to classify “hard living” families. The seven elements are: 1) heavy drinking 2) marital instability 3) toughness (profanity and violence) 4) political alienation 5) rootless ness 6) present-time orientation, and 7) a strong sense of individualism.
Koppelman, Robert S. Editor. 2003 Sing Out, Warning! Sing Out , Love! “The Writings of Lee Hays”. University of Massachusetts Press.
The writings of Lee Hays are a part of America’s left-wing culture and the working poor of the mid-twentieth century. There is a long introduction and brief essay by the editor who writes about the conditions of the working poor and the rebellious, protesting, left-wing culture. This book brings up issues about the working poor, the depression, left-wing culture, and the early years in the South.
Schor, Juliet. 2003. Gender, Race, and Class in Media. Chapter 19 “The New Politics of Consumption, Why Americans Want So Much More Than They Need.” SAGE Publications.
Juliet Schor talks about the “New Consumerism” which means an up scaling of lifestyle norms; the pervasiveness of conspicuous, status goods and of competition for acquiring them; and the growing disconnect between consumer desires and incomes. She uses this as a starting point and goes on about an increase in jobs and income and women getting white-collar jobs. Schor also talks about the conventional view, consumption being social, meaning that people follow trends and buy things because other people buy them. The advertising industry is also a major factor of consumption. Near the end she breaks down the politics of consumption into seven parts. They are: A right to a decent standard of living, Quality of life rather than quantity of stuff, Ecologically sustainable consumption, Democratize consumption practices, A politics of retailing and the “cultural environment”, Expose commodity “fetishism”, and A consumer movement and governmental policy.
Smith, Stephanie. Curator. 2005. Beyond Green, Toward a Sustainable Art. Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, Independent Curators International, New York.
Beyond Green revolves around an environmentally conscious exhibition involving over twenty international artists and touches on issues of sustainability. The book includes an introduction by curator Stephanie Smith and an essay by theorist and art historian Victor Margolin. Also included are essays and interviews by the artists. Two artists, Allora and Calzadilla collaborate on a video project, which follows a young man on two altered vehicles. Using found objects, Allora and Calzadilla attach a trumpet onto the exhaust of a moped to create jazz like sounds in the video called “In Returning a Sound”. In “Under Discussion”, a wooden table is turned upside down and a boat motor is attached. The young man cruises in the water around an island. The two artists are interviewed and discuss both pieces. Other projects throughout the book include Free Soil, solar panel book bags, and built environments.
Tulku, Tarthang. 1990. Knowledge of Time and Space. Dharma Publishing
Tulku brings up new ideas about time, space, and knowledge. He talks about different theories of time (past, present, and future), space and the “stuff” that passes through it, and knowledge which is to gather information from birth to death in order to survive and function. Throughout the book Tulku keeps you thinking and wondering about these ideas. For example, in the chapter “Body of Time”, he states “Suppose that we pushed past and future to their furthest limits-the beginning of the beginning and the end of the end. We might speculate that their extreme past and future meet”.