The aim of the Advanced Seminar, A&S 500, is to produce an excellent complete research project on a topic that is meaningful to you.  

The aim of this particular advanced seminar, on class culture, is to understand how and why society is stratified into classes and status groups.   We will explore how different classes have distinctive cultures, and consider the larger question of the social function and meaning of a class system.

Part of the fun of sociology is in the Sherlock Holmes activity of extracting the deeper symbolic meaning out of social relations.   We will share with one another incidents and objects that reveal class culture meanings - some profound, some humorous, some even excruciating.   We will start each week with "show and tell" or "truffles I have snuffled" (my wife's wonderful phrase).   If you have an object, bring it; if a story, write it up and practice delivering it.   This will be part of the workshop aspect of the seminar.

We will look at the entire class structure.   The keystone of our arch, and the central concern of our field investigations, will be the "knowledge class"   -- also known as the X class, the creative class, the Bobos [bourgeois bohemians], the cognitive elite, etc.   This is the class that is challenging the bourgeoisie for rule in the world today.   This is the class for which, other things being equal, Centre is training you.   It will repay our constant consideration.

We will meet as a seminar on Thursday nights from seven until about ten.   (Fear not, we will take a break, and take turns bringing sustenance). The heart of the seminar is the quality of everyone's participation; a vital conversation can lift a seminar above even the best lecture.  

"Seminar is sacred" (attendance is mandatory).

Your big project will be an individual article on some aspect of class culture that interests you.   Unless you have a strong passion otherwise, I suggest something on the knowledge class.   This article will be in the manner of an Atlantic Monthly cover story.   We will make an actual magazine of our articles, for the production costs of which I would like everyone to kick in $15; Centre and I will contribute the rest. (If you don't have $15, there are always weeds to be pulled at my house ....)   We should also meet individually each fortnight to work on your individual project. Available office hours are posted on the web; go to Weston Weekly Sign-up on the ANT/SOC page, or come to "coffee office hours," MWF 10:30 - 11:30 in the Centre Shoppes café.   The paper topics are here.

WORK

Everyone will write four short (2 - 3 pp.) papers.   Three of them everyone will do; on the last one you have some choice.   Due in class on the date named.

* Everyone will compare and contrast Florida's account of the creative class with Gershenfeld's portrait of the world of elite science and technology. Due Sunday 9/26 by 5 p.m. at my house.

* Everyone will go to a Wild Oats store and compare one aisle (your choice) with a comparable aisle at a different store (for example, at the co-op, at Kroger, at Savalot, etc.) This is essentially an ethnographic paper, and might be much longer than the others.   Due before Fall Break.

* Everyone will compare and contrast any two of these books on the essential character and social role of the knowledge class: Fussell, Florida, Brooks, Herrnstein and Murray (10/28).

* Choose one of the following for a compare-and-contrast paper:  

Sennett and Cobb on working class culture and Anderson on street culture (11/18)

Mills' conception of the power elite and Baltzell's conception of the aristocracy (12/2).

Furbank's account of class and the approach you are taking in your paper (12/2)

TEXTS:   Most are available in the bookstore.   All are also on reserve.

Paul Fussell, Class:   A Painfully Accurate Guide Through the American Status System

C. Wright Mills, The Power Elite

David Brooks, Bobos in Paradise

Richard Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class

Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, The Bell Curve

Richard Sennett and Jonathan Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class

Elijah Anderson, The Code of the Street

On reserve in the library only:

E. Digby Baltzell,   The Protestant Establishment , ch. 1,   "The Lincoln Family:   How American aristocrats are made."

P.N. Furbank, Unholy Pleasure, ch. 1 "The rhetoric of class"

GRADING:

·   Short papers (1/3)

·   Participation - includes quality of truffles   (1/3)

·   Research project (1/3)

Week 1        American class culture and power                                                   9/9

READ: Fussell, Class , entire; Max Weber, "Class, Status, Party" [reserve]

Week 2             Knowledge Class as Creative                                                                       9/16

READ: Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class , chs. 4 - 10 (120 pp)

Week 3             Bits and Atoms:   The World of Elite Science and Technology             9/23

7:30 CONVO "Bits and Atoms," Neil Gershenfeld, MIT.

Class will continue with Dr. Gershenfeld at the Humphrey Guest House.

READ: Florida, The Rise of the Creative Class , chs. 11 - 16 (125)

Week 4               Knowledge Class as Culture Leaders                                               9/30

READ: Brooks, Bobos in Paradise 1 - 4 (180)

Week 5               Knowledge Class and the Cultural Divide                                       10/7

READ:   Brooks, Bobos in Paradise , chs. 5 - 7 (85); Brooks, "One Nation, Slightly Divisible"(12) [Handout].

NB:   No class 10/14 (Fall Break)

Week 6                       Knowledge Class as Cognitive Elite                                                 10/21

READ: Herrnstein and Murray, The Bell Curve , Introduction and chs. 1 - 4 (125)

Week 7             Knowledge, Class, and Social Behavior                                               10/28

READ: Herrnstein and Murray, The Bell Curve , chs. 5 - 12 (140)

[Note:   You might also want to look at the notorious 13 th chapter]

Week 8             The Old Power Elite                                                                              11/4

READ: Mills, The Power Elite , chs. 1 - 3, 6, 9, 10, 12 (170)

Week 9               Working Class, Injured and Proud                                                        11/11

READ:   Sennett and Cobb, Hidden Injuries of Class , Intro. and chs. 3 & 5 (110)

Week 10           Decent and Street Culture                                                               11/18

READ:   Anderson, The Code of the Street , Introduction & chs. 1 & 7 (100)

NB No class 11/25 (Thanksgiving)

Week 11             Class Culture Theory, Revisited                                                           12/2

READ: E. Digby Baltzell,   The Protestant Establishment , ch. 1,   "The Lincoln Family:   How American aristocrats are made." (20) P.N. Furbank, Unholy Pleasure, ch. 1 "The rhetoric of class" (25)

NOTE:   Both are on reserve in the library.

DUE :   Your paper due to me electronically by midnight Friday 12/3.   Include a cover letter to the editor explaining the sources of your information, beyond what is included in the article itself.

Week 12             Your Class Culture Articles                                                                         12/9

READ:   All of your classmate's articles, posted online.

Week 13             Dinner and a Magazine                                                                      12/16

Celebratory knowledge class dinner at my house, where we will unveil the magazine.

Some of my Favorites for Further Reading:

Nelson Aldrich, Jr., Old Money:   The Mythology of America's Upper Class

Ken Auletta, The Underclass .

E.Digby Baltzell, Philadelphia Gentleman ; & Puritan Boston and Quaker Philadelphia

Loren Baritz, The Good Life:   The Meaning of Success for the Middle Class .

Stephen Bayley, Taste

Lisa Birnbach, The Preppy Handbook

Pierre Bourdieu, Distinction:   A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste .  

Jilly Cooper, Class

Ralph Dahrendorf, Class and Class Conflict in Industrial Society

G. William Domhoff, The Higher Circles

P.N Furbank, Unholy Pleasure: Or the Idea of Social Class

Alvin Gouldner, The Future of Intellectuals and the Rise of the New Class

Jay Grusky, ed., Social Stratification [reader of classic articles]

David Halle, Inside Culture:   Art and Class in the American Home

Jane Jacobs, The Death and Life of the Great American Cities

Michèle Lamont, Money, Morals, and Manners:   The Culture of the French and American Upper-Middle Classes

Michèle Lamont, The Dignity of Working Men

Katherine Newman, Falling From Grace:   The Experience of Downward Mobility in the American Middle Class.

Vilfredo Pareto, The Rise and Fall of Elites

John Shelton Reed, Southern Folks, Plain and Fancy

Joseph Schumpeter, Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy

Gerald Suttles, The Social Order of the Slum

William Whyte, Organization Man

Matt Wray and Annalee Newitz, eds.,   White Trash: Race and Class in America

Michael Young, The Rise of the Meritocracy , 1870 - 2033

Zweigenhaft and Domhoff, Diversity in the Power Elite