AMST 434 & 751 / ANTH 493 & 652 Kathryn Dudley

T 1.30-3.20 Fall 2017

American Precarity

The election of Donald Trump cast a national spotlight on the political discontent of
millions of Americans, a broad segment of whom are white, working class, and residing
in regions of the country marked by unprecedented precarity, a condition of economic
dislocation and social insecurity now affecting descendants of the post-WWII middle
class. Drawing on an interdisciplinary array of ethnographic, journalistic, and analytical
sources, this course traces the histories of the present that have produced cross-cutting
zones of abandonment and social trauma not easily pigeon-holed by concepts of race,
class, gender, and citizenship. Attentive to the concerns of this new voting block as well
as to those of the movements for social justice it denigrates, we delve into the apparatuses
of neoliberal capitalism itself, tracking its affective economies, global entanglements, and
myriad modes of commodification. We ask, throughout, whether the fantasy of
democracy has run its course or is more vital now than ever before.

Students are expected to participate in class discussion and attendance at every meeting is
mandatory. By midnight the Sunday before class, short reading responses must be posted
to the Canvas forum. You may skip one of the 12 responses; beyond this, your response
grade will be lowered for each one missed. A template for the reading response is on
Canvas. Two papers (10 pages each) are required. Papers should be analytical in nature,
informed by class discussions, and focused on the readings under consideration. Late
papers will not be accepted without a Deans excuse. Undergraduates fulfilling senior
essay requirements and graduate students may opt to write a 20 page term paper. Details
about the paper assignments will be provided in class.

Grades will be calculated as follows: reading responses (20%); class participation (20%);
first paper (30%); final paper (30%).

Required readings are on reserve at Bass Library and available for purchase at the Yale
Bookstore. They listed in the order we will read them:

Guy Standing, The Precariat: The New Dangerous Class, 2014 [2001]
Jefferson Cowie, StayinAlive: The 1970s and the Last Days of the Working Class, 2010
Kathryn Dudley, Guitar Makers: The Endurance of Artisanal Values in N. America, 2014
Nancy Isenberg, White Trash: The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America, 2016
Christine Walley, Exit Zero: Family and Class in Postindustrial Chicago, 2013
J. D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis, 2016
Carol Anderson, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide, 2016
Michael Kimmel, Angry White Men: American Masculinity at the End of an Era, 2013
Arlie Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the Right, 2016
Sam Quinones, Dreamland: The True Tale of Americas Opiate Epidemic, 2015
Keith Wailoo, Pain: A Political History, 2014
Amy Goldstein, Janesville: An American Story, 2017
COURSE OUTLINE

Sept. 5 Course Introduction

Precaritys Histories

Sept. 12 Standing, The Precariat

Sept. 19 Cowie, StayinAlive

Sept. 26 Dudley, Guitar Makers

Oct. 3 Isenberg, White Trash

Oct. 10 Walley, Exit Zero

Oct. 17 Vance, Hillbilly Elegy

*Oct. 20 First Paper Due

Precaritys Affects

Oct. 24 Anderson, White Rage

Oct. 31 Kimmel, Angry White Men

Nov. 7 Hochschild, Strangers in Their Own Land

Nov. 14 Quinones, Dreamland

Nov. 21 Fall Recess: No Class

Nov. 28 Wailoo, Pain

Dec. 5 Goldstein, Janesville

*Dec. 12 Final Paper Due