The New Poverty Studies and the Category of ‘Class’
July 5th, 2010
Birte Christ: “White is not better than black, but rich is definitely better than poor”: The New Poverty Studies and the Category of ‘Class’
Since the publication of Walter Benn Michaels’ polemic The Trouble with Diversity (2006), the focal point of American cultural studies has undergone a shift towards class, and, in particular, towards poverty. At the heart of Michaels’ argument is his demand that we use the category of class as a category of inequality rather than of identity. I will first introduce you to this new scholarship of class and poverty and contextualise it by going back to Marxist theory and its impact on the BirminghamSchool and cultural studies in the U.S. In the second half of the lecture, we will look at some representations of poverty: FSA photography, sentimental writing, and a middlebrow text. The last part is designed to demonstrate how you can apply cutting-edge theory on class and poverty in your own close readings of American culture.
Birte Christ studied English and German literature as well as Political Science at the Universities of Freiburg and Austin/Texas. She has worked as a lecturer for German at YaleUniversity and as an assistant professor at the North American Studies Programs at BonnUniversity and FreiburgUniversity. Her dissertation focused on middlebrow serial fiction in U.S. women’s magazines of the 1910s and ‘20s. She is working on her second book, on representations of capital punishment in American culture.