Event Title
Socio-Economic Inequality and Its Representations: Context and Pretext
Start Date
14-11-2014 2:30 PM
End Date
14-11-2014 3:00 PM
Abstract
Socio-economic inequality in the United States is both severe and rising, driven by near unrestrained corporate behavior in the marketplace, the workplace, and the political domain. While this dynamic has been most evident at a material level, amply demonstrated statistically and descriptively, at the symbolic level socio-economic polarization is much less apparent. The effect of this disjuncture is to obscure, if not mystify, the full character of socio-economic reality in the United States. This presentation will focus on the interpenetration of the material and symbolic aspects of socio-economic inequality by viewing the forms that exist “out there” (in social practices and institutions) and forms that are inscribed “in here” (in our heads and in our collective imagination). Among other things, by putting a lens on the reciprocally-confirming relationship between social life and its representations, we confront important and necessary questions about the role and the place of the Liberal Arts (both as institution and as intellectual stance) in the society, thereby prompting critical reflection on our own relationship to the social order and to social change.
Presenter Biography
Rick Fantasia is the Barbara Richmond 1940 Professor in the Social Sciences, Professor and Chair of the Department of Sociology at Smith College in Northampton, MA. He is former Chair of the Sociology of Culture Section and of the Section on Labor and Labor Movements of the American Sociological Association; and his publications include Cultures of Solidarity (1988), co-author of Des syndicats domestiques: Repression patronale et resistance syndicale aux Etats Unis (2003), Hard Work: Remaking the American Labor Movement (2004), Homelessness: a sourcebook (1994); and co-editor of Bringing Class Back In: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives (1991). He is currently writing a book on the transformations of French Gastronomy in the era of Neo-Liberalism. Above all, he is most proud of being the father of Camille Fantasia, class of 2015, Sarah Lawrence College.
Streaming Media
Socio-Economic Inequality and Its Representations: Context and Pretext
Socio-economic inequality in the United States is both severe and rising, driven by near unrestrained corporate behavior in the marketplace, the workplace, and the political domain. While this dynamic has been most evident at a material level, amply demonstrated statistically and descriptively, at the symbolic level socio-economic polarization is much less apparent. The effect of this disjuncture is to obscure, if not mystify, the full character of socio-economic reality in the United States. This presentation will focus on the interpenetration of the material and symbolic aspects of socio-economic inequality by viewing the forms that exist “out there” (in social practices and institutions) and forms that are inscribed “in here” (in our heads and in our collective imagination). Among other things, by putting a lens on the reciprocally-confirming relationship between social life and its representations, we confront important and necessary questions about the role and the place of the Liberal Arts (both as institution and as intellectual stance) in the society, thereby prompting critical reflection on our own relationship to the social order and to social change.