I realize I haven’t yet talked much about what for me is the most significant component of this dissertation-type project, which is the computers angle to composition and socioeconomic class. I say most significant for me because in the readings I did to pass my exams, I concluded that — while very few people in composition are talking about socioeconomic class — it dwindles to almost none in the sub-discipline of computers and composition. I think some of the reasons for this phenomenon are the same as the reasons for the dearth of class discourses in composition; however, I think there are other factors too — things having to do with the uneasy ways computers complicate cultural and economic relations, and our notions about the relationship between education and technological progress — that I haven’t yet adequately started to pin down for myself.
Which is why I’m not going to think about it too much right away. The computers angle will come later; my first project is to lay out some sharper ways of thinking about class. To that end, here’s an annotated initial summer reading list:
First question: who talks a lot about class? Economists and sociologists.
Sennet & Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class.
Resnick and Wolff, Knowledge and Class.
Gibson-Graham, Resnick, and Wolff, Class and Its Others.
Gilbert, The American Class Structure. (A re-read, but useful.)
Problem is, I know Resnick, Wolff, and Gibson-Graham are coming from a very specific political position, one with which I have some sympathies. Still, their discourse is very much an “alternative” discourse, and I figure I’d best get a handle on the mainstream discourse, in order to understand where the points of contention are. I don’t want to have my readings leaving me blinkered. And besides which, I’m, like, so not an economist, and I don’t want to get lost, so I think the readings below will actually come before the ones I listed above, just so I can get some scaffolding going on.
Heilbroner and Thurow, Economics Explained. The liberal position. Easy stuff; mostly finished with it.
Hazlitt, Economics in One Lesson. The conservative position, and how. Yeesh. Halfway through this one, and it’s scary; one long, sustained, snarl of privilege. Hazlitt’s tacit assumption is that all poor people are poor because they’re lazy and won’t pull their own weight, and so the wealthy — who have all worked hard to get where they are — have to shell out to carry along those less deserving. Also consistently sets up economics as a zero-sum game: if capital goes from one place, it has to be taken away from another. Mr. Hazlitt strikes me as a thoroughly unpleasant man.
Mankiw, Principles of Economics. Don’t know if I’ll get through this one — the typical big imposing Econ 101 textbook. Feel like I should; I mean, if I’m going to gripe about everybody else being sloppy with their terms, I’d best be careful myself.
Resnick and Wolff, Economics: Marxian versus Neoclassical. This’ll definitely help.
And some recommended materials from Resnick and Wolff, including selections from The Marx-Engels Reader. I figure at this point I should note that I don’t consider myself a Marxist, but say the word “class” and I can’t think of anyone else in history who comes more quickly to most peoples’ minds, so I figure it’s a good idea to know what he has to say.
Those are the foundations. After that, it’s on to culture and education and how class gets or doesn’t get reproduced. This’ll include a second look at a lot of the literature of class and composition that I went through for my exams, but also a few other things.
Williams, Marxism and Literature.
Bourdieu and Passeron, Reproduction in Education, Society, and Culture.
Horner, Terms of Work for Composition.
Shepard, McMillan, and Tate, Coming to Class. Mostly more rhetoric of authenticity stuff.
Once I’ve got this down, I figure I’ll have a better idea of what my own theories of class are, and I can try to tie in the computers and writing aspect.
Herman and Swiss, The World Wide Web and Contemporary Cultural Theory.
Feenberg, Transforming Technology. Revised edition of his Critical Theory of Technology, which I initially loathed several years ago, but is looking more and more like it’ll be quite useful.
Joyce, Othermindedness. Quick skim back through for the network culture aspect. And Michael is always a pleasure to read, fiction or non-.
Brown & Duguid, The Social Life of Information. Quick re-read.
Taylor, The Moment of Complexity. Not sure how helpful it’ll be, but it sure looks neat. Maybe something for when I need a break.
Schon, Sanyal, and Michell, High Technology and Low-Income Communities.
So that’s it. Doubt I’ll be able to finish it all this summer, but I’ll do my dangedest. If you’ve got your own copies, feel free to follow along.
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