HOW CLASS WORKS — 2008
A Conference at SUNY Stony Brook
June 5-7, 2008
The Center for Study of Working Class Life is pleased
to announce the How Class Works – 2008 Conference, to
be held at the State University of New York at Stony
Brook, June 5 - 7, 2008.
Purpose and orientation : The conference seeks to
explore ways in which an explicit recognition of class
helps to understand the social world in which we live,
and ways in which analysis of society can deepen our
understanding of class as a social relationship.
Presentations should take as their point of reference
the lived experience of class; proposed theoretical
contributions should be rooted in and illuminate
social realities.
Conference themes : The conference welcomes proposals
for presentations that advance our understanding of
any of the following themes:
The mosaic of class, race, and gender. To explore how
class shapes racial, gender, and ethnic experience and
how different racial, gender, and ethnic experiences
within various classes shape the meaning of class.
Special focus: the legacy of Theodore W. Allen's work
on the invention of the white race and its
implications in the new racial and ethnic mix of 21 st
century U.S. society.
Class, power, and social structure. To explore the
social content of working, middle, and capitalist
classes in terms of various aspects of power; to
explore ways in which class and structures of power
interact, at the workplace and in the broader society.
Class and community. To explore ways in which class
operates outside the workplace in the communities
where people of various classes live.
Class in a global economy. To explore how class
identity and class dynamics are influenced by
globalization, including experience of cross-border
organizing, capitalist class dynamics, international
labor standards.
Middle class? Working class? What's the difference and
why does it matter? To explore the claim that the U.S.
is a middle class society and contrast it with the
notion that the working class is the majority; to
explore the relationships between the middle class and
the working class, and between the middle class and
the capitalist class.
Class, public policy, and electoral politics. To
explore how class affects public policy, with special
attention to health care, the criminal justice system,
labor law, poverty, tax and other economic policy,
housing, and education; to explore the place of
electoral politics in the arrangement of class forces
on policy matters. Special focus: class, health, and
health care.
Class and culture: To explore ways in which culture
transmits and transforms class dynamics.
Pedagogy of class. To explore techniques and materials
useful for teaching about class, at K-12 levels, in
college and university courses, and in labor studies
and adult education courses.
Conference registration and housing reservations is be
possible after February 15, 2008. Details and updates
will be posted at
http://www.workingclass.sunysb.edu
Conference coordinator :
Michael Zweig
Director, Center for Study of Working Class Life
Department of Economics
State University of New York
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384
631.632.7536
michael.zweig@stonybrook.edu
http://www.sunysb.edu/workingclass/conference/2008/cfp.shtml