Adrienne Akins Warfield
Harriet Pollack (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2019
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781496826145
- eISBN:
- 9781496826190
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781496826145.003.0009
- Subject:
- History, American History: 20th Century
This chapter compares Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” with Bob Dylan’s “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” exploring the relationship between class, racist violence, and regional identity through ...
More
This chapter compares Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” with Bob Dylan’s “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” exploring the relationship between class, racist violence, and regional identity through examining the common assumptions both artists shared about Medgar Evers’ murderer and his motivations. The essay argues that class anxiety manifests itself both in acts of racist violence like Beckwith’s and in artistic conceptualizations of such violence as the exclusive domain of the white Southern underclass. The chapter also analyzes the ways in which the revisions that Welty made to the story after Beckwith’s arrest were connected to the class status, Southern identity, and racial consciousness of the killer. The resemblances between Dylan’s and Welty’s responses to the Evers murder show that the tendency to associate racist violence with the economic resentments of lower-class whites is evidenced among both Northern “outsiders” and Southern “insiders.”Less
This chapter compares Welty’s “Where Is the Voice Coming From?” with Bob Dylan’s “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” exploring the relationship between class, racist violence, and regional identity through examining the common assumptions both artists shared about Medgar Evers’ murderer and his motivations. The essay argues that class anxiety manifests itself both in acts of racist violence like Beckwith’s and in artistic conceptualizations of such violence as the exclusive domain of the white Southern underclass. The chapter also analyzes the ways in which the revisions that Welty made to the story after Beckwith’s arrest were connected to the class status, Southern identity, and racial consciousness of the killer. The resemblances between Dylan’s and Welty’s responses to the Evers murder show that the tendency to associate racist violence with the economic resentments of lower-class whites is evidenced among both Northern “outsiders” and Southern “insiders.”
Ester Gallo
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780199469307
- eISBN:
- 9780199089871
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780199469307.003.0007
- Subject:
- Sociology, Comparative and Historical Sociology, Marriage and the Family
Chapter six discusses how different family models— joint, nuclear, transnational, among others—are linked to class mobility among Nambudiri migrant families. The question of the relation between ...
More
Chapter six discusses how different family models— joint, nuclear, transnational, among others—are linked to class mobility among Nambudiri migrant families. The question of the relation between family size, sterilization and citizenship is analysed to show how sticking to the ‘one-child’ model is made meaningful by referring to a wider colonial history of family reproduction and creates dilemmas in the present. The chapter discusses how histories of procreation, childbirth, and care are recalled to illustrate the progressive move from a sterile community to a responsible community. While the sterile community describes a colonial past in which few Nambudiri children were born or accepted due to orthodox kinship norms, the responsible community accepts the sacrifice represented by sterilization in order to achieve models of modern motherhood and fatherhood. Changing family sizes, if combined with generational forms of migration, also produces anxieties among middle-class families on elderly and children care.Less
Chapter six discusses how different family models— joint, nuclear, transnational, among others—are linked to class mobility among Nambudiri migrant families. The question of the relation between family size, sterilization and citizenship is analysed to show how sticking to the ‘one-child’ model is made meaningful by referring to a wider colonial history of family reproduction and creates dilemmas in the present. The chapter discusses how histories of procreation, childbirth, and care are recalled to illustrate the progressive move from a sterile community to a responsible community. While the sterile community describes a colonial past in which few Nambudiri children were born or accepted due to orthodox kinship norms, the responsible community accepts the sacrifice represented by sterilization in order to achieve models of modern motherhood and fatherhood. Changing family sizes, if combined with generational forms of migration, also produces anxieties among middle-class families on elderly and children care.
Dana Becker
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- March 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199742912
- eISBN:
- 9780190258436
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:osobl/9780199742912.001.0001
- Subject:
- Social Work, Health and Mental Health
Everyone is talking about stress. From 1970 to 1980, 2,326 academic articles appeared with the word “stress” in the title. In the decade between 2000 and 2010 that number jumped to 21,750. Has life ...
More
Everyone is talking about stress. From 1970 to 1980, 2,326 academic articles appeared with the word “stress” in the title. In the decade between 2000 and 2010 that number jumped to 21,750. Has life become ten times more stressful, or is it the stress concept itself that has grown exponentially over the past forty years? This book argues that our national infatuation with the therapeutic culture has created a middle-class moral imperative to manage the tensions of daily life by turning inward, ignoring the social and political realities that underlie those tensions. The book shows that although stress is often associated with conditions over which people have little control—workplace policies unfavorable to family life, increasing economic inequality, war in the age of terrorism—the stress concept focuses most of our attention on how individuals react to stress. A proliferation of self-help books and dire medical warnings about the negative effects of stress on our physical and emotional health all place the responsibility for alleviating stress-though yoga, deep breathing, better diet, etc.—squarely on the individual. The stress concept has come of age in a period of tectonic social and political shifts. Nevertheless, we persist in the all-American belief that we can meet these changes by re-engineering ourselves rather than tackling the root causes of stress. Examining both research and popular representations of stress in cultural terms, the book traces the evolution of the social uses of the stress concept as it has been transformed into an all-purpose vehicle for defining, expressing, and containing middle-class anxieties about upheavals in American society.Less
Everyone is talking about stress. From 1970 to 1980, 2,326 academic articles appeared with the word “stress” in the title. In the decade between 2000 and 2010 that number jumped to 21,750. Has life become ten times more stressful, or is it the stress concept itself that has grown exponentially over the past forty years? This book argues that our national infatuation with the therapeutic culture has created a middle-class moral imperative to manage the tensions of daily life by turning inward, ignoring the social and political realities that underlie those tensions. The book shows that although stress is often associated with conditions over which people have little control—workplace policies unfavorable to family life, increasing economic inequality, war in the age of terrorism—the stress concept focuses most of our attention on how individuals react to stress. A proliferation of self-help books and dire medical warnings about the negative effects of stress on our physical and emotional health all place the responsibility for alleviating stress-though yoga, deep breathing, better diet, etc.—squarely on the individual. The stress concept has come of age in a period of tectonic social and political shifts. Nevertheless, we persist in the all-American belief that we can meet these changes by re-engineering ourselves rather than tackling the root causes of stress. Examining both research and popular representations of stress in cultural terms, the book traces the evolution of the social uses of the stress concept as it has been transformed into an all-purpose vehicle for defining, expressing, and containing middle-class anxieties about upheavals in American society.
Abigail A. Van Slyck
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- August 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780816648764
- eISBN:
- 9781452945989
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Minnesota Press
- DOI:
- 10.5749/minnesota/9780816648764.001.0001
- Subject:
- Architecture, Architectural History
Since they were first established in the 1880s, children’s summer camps have touched the lives of millions of people. Why were summer camps created? What concerns and ideals motivated their founders? ...
More
Since they were first established in the 1880s, children’s summer camps have touched the lives of millions of people. Why were summer camps created? What concerns and ideals motivated their founders? Whom did they serve? How did they change over time? What factors influenced their design? To answer these and many other questions, this book looks at the most visible and evocative aspect of camp life: its landscape and architecture. It argues that summer camps delivered much more than a simple encounter with the natural world. Instead, it suggests, camps provided a man-made version of wilderness, shaped by middle-class anxieties about gender roles, class tensions, race relations, and modernity and its impact on the lives of children. Following a fascinating history of summer camps and a wide-ranging overview of the factors that led to their creation, the book examines the intersections of the natural landscape with human-built forms and social activities. In particular, it addresses changing attitudes toward such subjects as children’s health, sanitation, play, relationships between the sexes, Native American culture, and evolving ideas about childhood.Less
Since they were first established in the 1880s, children’s summer camps have touched the lives of millions of people. Why were summer camps created? What concerns and ideals motivated their founders? Whom did they serve? How did they change over time? What factors influenced their design? To answer these and many other questions, this book looks at the most visible and evocative aspect of camp life: its landscape and architecture. It argues that summer camps delivered much more than a simple encounter with the natural world. Instead, it suggests, camps provided a man-made version of wilderness, shaped by middle-class anxieties about gender roles, class tensions, race relations, and modernity and its impact on the lives of children. Following a fascinating history of summer camps and a wide-ranging overview of the factors that led to their creation, the book examines the intersections of the natural landscape with human-built forms and social activities. In particular, it addresses changing attitudes toward such subjects as children’s health, sanitation, play, relationships between the sexes, Native American culture, and evolving ideas about childhood.
Guy Cuthbertson
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- September 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780300153002
- eISBN:
- 9780300198553
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300153002.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Poetry
One of Britain’s best-known and most loved poets, Wilfred Owen (1893–1918) was killed at age 25 on one of the last days of the First World War, having acted heroically as soldier and officer despite ...
More
One of Britain’s best-known and most loved poets, Wilfred Owen (1893–1918) was killed at age 25 on one of the last days of the First World War, having acted heroically as soldier and officer despite his famous misgivings about the war’s rationale and conduct. He left behind a body of poetry that sensitively captured the pity, rage, valor, and futility of the conflict. This new biography provides a fresh account of Owen’s life and formative influences: the lower-middle-class childhood that he tried to escape; the places he lived in, from Birkenhead to Bordeaux; his class anxieties and his religious doubts; his sexuality and friendships; his close relationship with his mother and his childlike personality. It chronicles a great poet’s growth to poetic maturity, illuminates the social strata of the extraordinary Edwardian era, and adds rich context to how Owen’s enduring verse can be understood.Less
One of Britain’s best-known and most loved poets, Wilfred Owen (1893–1918) was killed at age 25 on one of the last days of the First World War, having acted heroically as soldier and officer despite his famous misgivings about the war’s rationale and conduct. He left behind a body of poetry that sensitively captured the pity, rage, valor, and futility of the conflict. This new biography provides a fresh account of Owen’s life and formative influences: the lower-middle-class childhood that he tried to escape; the places he lived in, from Birkenhead to Bordeaux; his class anxieties and his religious doubts; his sexuality and friendships; his close relationship with his mother and his childlike personality. It chronicles a great poet’s growth to poetic maturity, illuminates the social strata of the extraordinary Edwardian era, and adds rich context to how Owen’s enduring verse can be understood.
