Patrick Jagoda
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226346489
- eISBN:
- 9780226346656
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226346656.001.0001
- Subject:
- Literature, Film, Media, and Cultural Studies
The language of networks now describes everything from the Internet to terrorist organizations. But even as “network” has become an early-twenty-first century keyword, its overuse has also limited ...
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The language of networks now describes everything from the Internet to terrorist organizations. But even as “network” has become an early-twenty-first century keyword, its overuse has also limited its analytic usefulness. Network Aesthetics shows how popular American cultural forms mediate our experience and promise greater insight into the contemporary network imaginary. The first part of the book looks to narratives from the 1990s and 2000s, including novels such as Don DeLillo’s Underworld, films such as Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana, and television series such as David Simon’s The Wire. All of these works experiment with network form in order to open up thought about the maximal, emergent, and realist aspects of networks in turn-of-the-twentieth-century America. The second part of the book examines video games and digital media artworks that are interactive, nonlinear, procedural, and dependent on networked audiences. New media, including popular video games such as thatgamecompany’s Journey and emergent transmedia storytelling forms, such as alternate reality games, open up thought about the participatory and improvisational dimensions of networks. The book makes its key contributions to the fields of new media theory, literary criticism, and American studies. It revises the long-standing and still common view of networks as control structures that originated in the computing and cybernetics research of the early Cold War. Attention to cultural productions, from novels to video games, complicates clichés of sublime interconnection and illuminates the ordinary, lived aspects of networked life in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries.Less
The language of networks now describes everything from the Internet to terrorist organizations. But even as “network” has become an early-twenty-first century keyword, its overuse has also limited its analytic usefulness. Network Aesthetics shows how popular American cultural forms mediate our experience and promise greater insight into the contemporary network imaginary. The first part of the book looks to narratives from the 1990s and 2000s, including novels such as Don DeLillo’s Underworld, films such as Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana, and television series such as David Simon’s The Wire. All of these works experiment with network form in order to open up thought about the maximal, emergent, and realist aspects of networks in turn-of-the-twentieth-century America. The second part of the book examines video games and digital media artworks that are interactive, nonlinear, procedural, and dependent on networked audiences. New media, including popular video games such as thatgamecompany’s Journey and emergent transmedia storytelling forms, such as alternate reality games, open up thought about the participatory and improvisational dimensions of networks. The book makes its key contributions to the fields of new media theory, literary criticism, and American studies. It revises the long-standing and still common view of networks as control structures that originated in the computing and cybernetics research of the early Cold War. Attention to cultural productions, from novels to video games, complicates clichés of sublime interconnection and illuminates the ordinary, lived aspects of networked life in the late-twentieth and early-twenty-first centuries.
Paul Iganski
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9781861349408
- eISBN:
- 9781447302476
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Policy Press
- DOI:
- 10.1332/policypress/9781861349408.003.0002
- Subject:
- Social Work, Crime and Justice
The experiences of victims show that in general, ‘hate crime’ offenders are not an aberration, or politically motivated extremists confined to the margins of society. Instead, many are ‘ordinary’ ...
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The experiences of victims show that in general, ‘hate crime’ offenders are not an aberration, or politically motivated extremists confined to the margins of society. Instead, many are ‘ordinary’ people who offend in the unfolding contexts of their everyday lives. The ordinariness of offenders and offending is arguably a further key dimension in the conceptualisation of ‘hate crime’, when victims' experiences are placed at the centre of understanding about ‘hate crime’. This line of argument is pursued in this chapter in the spirit of conceptualising ‘hate crime’ as a scholarly domain characterised by an analysis of the commonalities and differences between various forms of oppressive violence. In that spirit, this chapter unravels the situational dynamics of anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim and other racist incidents, incidents against people with a disability and homophobic incidents. It illuminates the connections between background structure and the foreground of offender action in cases of ‘hate crime’, providing the missing link between the macro-societal ideological edifice and the micro-level actions of offenders.Less
The experiences of victims show that in general, ‘hate crime’ offenders are not an aberration, or politically motivated extremists confined to the margins of society. Instead, many are ‘ordinary’ people who offend in the unfolding contexts of their everyday lives. The ordinariness of offenders and offending is arguably a further key dimension in the conceptualisation of ‘hate crime’, when victims' experiences are placed at the centre of understanding about ‘hate crime’. This line of argument is pursued in this chapter in the spirit of conceptualising ‘hate crime’ as a scholarly domain characterised by an analysis of the commonalities and differences between various forms of oppressive violence. In that spirit, this chapter unravels the situational dynamics of anti-Jewish, anti-Muslim and other racist incidents, incidents against people with a disability and homophobic incidents. It illuminates the connections between background structure and the foreground of offender action in cases of ‘hate crime’, providing the missing link between the macro-societal ideological edifice and the micro-level actions of offenders.
Louis Bayman
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- January 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780748656424
- eISBN:
- 9781474400947
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Edinburgh University Press
- DOI:
- 10.3366/edinburgh/9780748656424.003.0001
- Subject:
- Film, Television and Radio, Film
This chapter lays out an analysis of its topic as multi-faceted. It sets out the post-war period as a special moment of Italian melodrama’s greatest success, mentions the intertwining of ...
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This chapter lays out an analysis of its topic as multi-faceted. It sets out the post-war period as a special moment of Italian melodrama’s greatest success, mentions the intertwining of understandings of ‘Italian’ and of ‘melodramatic’, and defines melodrama, amidst a history of pathos and tragic arts, through the representation of misery occurring within a definite ordinariness. It discusses the previous works on Italian melodrama and establishes its distinctiveness as offering a sustained investigation into the aesthetic functions of popular culture. It summarises the subsequent chapters and ends with the book’s working hypothesis, that melodrama acts as a border, the line at which excess pulls with restriction, formal expressivity with representation, and art with reality.Less
This chapter lays out an analysis of its topic as multi-faceted. It sets out the post-war period as a special moment of Italian melodrama’s greatest success, mentions the intertwining of understandings of ‘Italian’ and of ‘melodramatic’, and defines melodrama, amidst a history of pathos and tragic arts, through the representation of misery occurring within a definite ordinariness. It discusses the previous works on Italian melodrama and establishes its distinctiveness as offering a sustained investigation into the aesthetic functions of popular culture. It summarises the subsequent chapters and ends with the book’s working hypothesis, that melodrama acts as a border, the line at which excess pulls with restriction, formal expressivity with representation, and art with reality.
Margaret FinK BerMan
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- March 2014
- ISBN:
- 9781604734423
- eISBN:
- 9781621032236
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Mississippi
- DOI:
- 10.14325/mississippi/9781604734423.003.0014
- Subject:
- Literature, Comics Studies
In Chris Ware’s comic strip “Building Stories,” the protagonist is a 30-year-old woman who is an amputee and sometimes wears a prosthetic limb. Ware’s description strangely elides disability as a ...
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In Chris Ware’s comic strip “Building Stories,” the protagonist is a 30-year-old woman who is an amputee and sometimes wears a prosthetic limb. Ware’s description strangely elides disability as a characterization of the woman, relegating it to a de-privileged position in his account of the narrative. This chapter examines the ways in which Ware represents the woman in “Building Stories,” with the goal of demystifying her physical difference by situating her within an aesthetic of the ordinary. After discussing the politics underlying images of bodies and disability as a politicized identity, it considers Ware’s aesthetic of ordinariness and narrative structure. The chapter then argues that Ware imagines the disabled experience to be not radically different from the daily rituals of the other inhabitants of the building, thus opening a space for the protagonist that the chapter refers to as “idiosyncratic belonging.”Less
In Chris Ware’s comic strip “Building Stories,” the protagonist is a 30-year-old woman who is an amputee and sometimes wears a prosthetic limb. Ware’s description strangely elides disability as a characterization of the woman, relegating it to a de-privileged position in his account of the narrative. This chapter examines the ways in which Ware represents the woman in “Building Stories,” with the goal of demystifying her physical difference by situating her within an aesthetic of the ordinary. After discussing the politics underlying images of bodies and disability as a politicized identity, it considers Ware’s aesthetic of ordinariness and narrative structure. The chapter then argues that Ware imagines the disabled experience to be not radically different from the daily rituals of the other inhabitants of the building, thus opening a space for the protagonist that the chapter refers to as “idiosyncratic belonging.”
Ju Yon Kim
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- March 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781479897896
- eISBN:
- 9781479837519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- NYU Press
- DOI:
- 10.18574/nyu/9781479897896.003.0006
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Asian Studies
This afterword considers how the online video has become the quintessential form of the everyday, capturing life's smallest moments and disseminating them globally through websites such as YouTube. ...
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This afterword considers how the online video has become the quintessential form of the everyday, capturing life's smallest moments and disseminating them globally through websites such as YouTube. Focusing on online videos provided by Asian American artists, actors, and entrepreneurs, it highlights the ordinariness of Asian Americans, in large part by strategically inserting spectacular performances of everyday practices. It cites one such video, Wong Fu Productions's “Yellow Fever,” which defamiliarizes the mundane to engage with racial and gender stereotypes specific to Asian American men. It examines how the racial mundane establishes the online videos' concerns as commonplace, and makes possible a turn to caricature and theatrics that sets the Asian American performer as ordinary.Less
This afterword considers how the online video has become the quintessential form of the everyday, capturing life's smallest moments and disseminating them globally through websites such as YouTube. Focusing on online videos provided by Asian American artists, actors, and entrepreneurs, it highlights the ordinariness of Asian Americans, in large part by strategically inserting spectacular performances of everyday practices. It cites one such video, Wong Fu Productions's “Yellow Fever,” which defamiliarizes the mundane to engage with racial and gender stereotypes specific to Asian American men. It examines how the racial mundane establishes the online videos' concerns as commonplace, and makes possible a turn to caricature and theatrics that sets the Asian American performer as ordinary.
Joanna Thornborrow
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190629489
- eISBN:
- 9780190629519
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190629489.003.0007
- Subject:
- Linguistics, Sociolinguistics / Anthropological Linguistics
This chapter examines the concept of ‘ordinary’ as a way of categorizing and describing people who are non-media professionals participating in mediated discourse, specifically in relation to the ...
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This chapter examines the concept of ‘ordinary’ as a way of categorizing and describing people who are non-media professionals participating in mediated discourse, specifically in relation to the emergence of reality television as one of the most significant and widespread formats of 21st-century broadcasting. Using the notion of middle-space performances, the chapter argues that these participants are not displaying ordinariness in the sense of being like us, recruited from the population who constitute the audience, but rather categorizable social identities based on specific, recognizable characteristics which broadcasters can then draw upon to produce watchable performances of difference. The question of style becomes relevant as a set of discursive choices in three domains: lifestyle, production style, and the styling of a social identity as ‘other.’Less
This chapter examines the concept of ‘ordinary’ as a way of categorizing and describing people who are non-media professionals participating in mediated discourse, specifically in relation to the emergence of reality television as one of the most significant and widespread formats of 21st-century broadcasting. Using the notion of middle-space performances, the chapter argues that these participants are not displaying ordinariness in the sense of being like us, recruited from the population who constitute the audience, but rather categorizable social identities based on specific, recognizable characteristics which broadcasters can then draw upon to produce watchable performances of difference. The question of style becomes relevant as a set of discursive choices in three domains: lifestyle, production style, and the styling of a social identity as ‘other.’
Hidefumi Hitokoto and Masato Sawada
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780190228057
- eISBN:
- 9780190629458
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190228057.003.0012
- Subject:
- Psychology, Social Psychology
This chapter argues that school bullying in Japan is sustained by interactions between emotional processes of envy and traditional cultural contexts that value interdependence, ordinariness, and ...
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This chapter argues that school bullying in Japan is sustained by interactions between emotional processes of envy and traditional cultural contexts that value interdependence, ordinariness, and power distance. Specifically, it offers a cultural-psychological interpretation (i.e., a cultural-emotional entangled process model) regarding how certain cultural contexts might interact with both benign and malicious types of envy, and culture-specific ways in which people socially compare themselves to others, engage in self-improvement, and maintain harmony, which may result in indirect, closed, hidden, and seemingly justified types of bullying in Japanese student life. It also extrapolates as to how these intertwined processes of culture and emotion might produce broader examples of power abuse during the present period of cultural change and technological development.Less
This chapter argues that school bullying in Japan is sustained by interactions between emotional processes of envy and traditional cultural contexts that value interdependence, ordinariness, and power distance. Specifically, it offers a cultural-psychological interpretation (i.e., a cultural-emotional entangled process model) regarding how certain cultural contexts might interact with both benign and malicious types of envy, and culture-specific ways in which people socially compare themselves to others, engage in self-improvement, and maintain harmony, which may result in indirect, closed, hidden, and seemingly justified types of bullying in Japanese student life. It also extrapolates as to how these intertwined processes of culture and emotion might produce broader examples of power abuse during the present period of cultural change and technological development.
Alexandra M. Apolloni
- Published in print:
- 2021
- Published Online:
- November 2021
- ISBN:
- 9780190879891
- eISBN:
- 9780190879938
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780190879891.003.0002
- Subject:
- Music, History, American, Popular
This chapter situates the voices of 1960s young women pop singers in a broader landscape of representations of young, white femininity and the historiography of 1960s British pop, Swinging London, ...
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This chapter situates the voices of 1960s young women pop singers in a broader landscape of representations of young, white femininity and the historiography of 1960s British pop, Swinging London, and British girlhood. Drawing primarily on music magazines and fashion and entertainment magazines produced for young women in the 1960s (including titles such as Boyfriend, Fabulous, Honey, Mirabelle, and Petticoat) it shows how music was construed as a key element of modern, youthful, white femininity and self-expression. The chapter connects stories told about girl pop singers and popular narratives about young women seeking independence and shows how these stories are ultimately about attaining access to voice. These narratives about young women’s voices shaped music industry attitudes toward young women as consumers and producers of music, in turn shaping the kinds of musical opportunities that were available to girl and young woman singers.Less
This chapter situates the voices of 1960s young women pop singers in a broader landscape of representations of young, white femininity and the historiography of 1960s British pop, Swinging London, and British girlhood. Drawing primarily on music magazines and fashion and entertainment magazines produced for young women in the 1960s (including titles such as Boyfriend, Fabulous, Honey, Mirabelle, and Petticoat) it shows how music was construed as a key element of modern, youthful, white femininity and self-expression. The chapter connects stories told about girl pop singers and popular narratives about young women seeking independence and shows how these stories are ultimately about attaining access to voice. These narratives about young women’s voices shaped music industry attitudes toward young women as consumers and producers of music, in turn shaping the kinds of musical opportunities that were available to girl and young woman singers.
Joe Moshenska
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- November 2014
- ISBN:
- 9780198712947
- eISBN:
- 9780191781377
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198712947.003.0002
- Subject:
- Literature, 16th-century and Renaissance Literature, Criticism/Theory
The first section considers the attack on the pious handling of relics in the Reformation, via the translation into English of Erasmus’s satirical colloquy on pilgrimage, which construes relics as ...
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The first section considers the attack on the pious handling of relics in the Reformation, via the translation into English of Erasmus’s satirical colloquy on pilgrimage, which construes relics as objects too disgusting to touch. It is then argued that this apparent rejection of tactile holiness is less unequivocal than it seems. Erasmus’s own writings leave room for the embracing of the divine as an expression of a pious life, while English reformers often treated printed bibles much like relics. This ambivalence also characterizes discussions of the Eucharist, in which English reformers tended to elide the relationship, explored by medieval writers such as Reginald Pecock, between the literal and metaphorical touching of Christ. This was eminently true of Thomas Cranmer, whose careful inclusion of the seemingly innocuous phrase ‘as it were’ allowed him simultaneously to reject and retain devotional touch.Less
The first section considers the attack on the pious handling of relics in the Reformation, via the translation into English of Erasmus’s satirical colloquy on pilgrimage, which construes relics as objects too disgusting to touch. It is then argued that this apparent rejection of tactile holiness is less unequivocal than it seems. Erasmus’s own writings leave room for the embracing of the divine as an expression of a pious life, while English reformers often treated printed bibles much like relics. This ambivalence also characterizes discussions of the Eucharist, in which English reformers tended to elide the relationship, explored by medieval writers such as Reginald Pecock, between the literal and metaphorical touching of Christ. This was eminently true of Thomas Cranmer, whose careful inclusion of the seemingly innocuous phrase ‘as it were’ allowed him simultaneously to reject and retain devotional touch.
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198812579
- eISBN:
- 9780191850387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198812579.003.0002
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Social History
This chapter focuses on the interviews and ethnographic observation conducted by a group of sociologists with Tyneside shipbuilders in 1968–71. Re-examining the interviews suggests several ...
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This chapter focuses on the interviews and ethnographic observation conducted by a group of sociologists with Tyneside shipbuilders in 1968–71. Re-examining the interviews suggests several conclusions: class was important to many of the men, but its significance varied depending on context and was closely linked to gender identity. Many closely associated class with snobbishness and hierarchy, and these were things the shipbuilders generally condemned. Instead, they emphasized ordinariness, authenticity, and individuality, all values with deep roots in male, working-class culture. In their attitudes to politics, the effects of the decline of deference were visible: a significant minority of men voiced sceptical or hostile comments about the Labour Party, politics, and/or trade union hierarchies. Individual self-interest was the basis of trade union solidarity for many, and the decline of deference therefore drove greater unofficial strike activity, restless militancy, and even outright insubordination.Less
This chapter focuses on the interviews and ethnographic observation conducted by a group of sociologists with Tyneside shipbuilders in 1968–71. Re-examining the interviews suggests several conclusions: class was important to many of the men, but its significance varied depending on context and was closely linked to gender identity. Many closely associated class with snobbishness and hierarchy, and these were things the shipbuilders generally condemned. Instead, they emphasized ordinariness, authenticity, and individuality, all values with deep roots in male, working-class culture. In their attitudes to politics, the effects of the decline of deference were visible: a significant minority of men voiced sceptical or hostile comments about the Labour Party, politics, and/or trade union hierarchies. Individual self-interest was the basis of trade union solidarity for many, and the decline of deference therefore drove greater unofficial strike activity, restless militancy, and even outright insubordination.
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198812579
- eISBN:
- 9780191850387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198812579.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Social History
This chapter reuses interviews conducted in 1985–8 for Paul Thompson’s ‘100 Families’ study to examine interviewees’ thoughts about class in the middle of the Thatcher decade. It finds that ...
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This chapter reuses interviews conducted in 1985–8 for Paul Thompson’s ‘100 Families’ study to examine interviewees’ thoughts about class in the middle of the Thatcher decade. It finds that ambivalence and ordinariness were key themes in the discussions of many. Many did not want to class themselves, for ‘class talk’ was associated with snobbishness, superior and inferior attitudes, and because many thought that changes in the occupational structure, housing, and lifestyles had created a large ‘ordinary’ group in the middle of society: not workless but also not privileged. Some interviewees confidently claimed a working-class identity; this was usually the case where individuals had trade union experiences and/or a close-knit, working-class community to draw on. Among younger generations, however, some said that, though older class markers had disappeared, new ones had grown up to take their place.Less
This chapter reuses interviews conducted in 1985–8 for Paul Thompson’s ‘100 Families’ study to examine interviewees’ thoughts about class in the middle of the Thatcher decade. It finds that ambivalence and ordinariness were key themes in the discussions of many. Many did not want to class themselves, for ‘class talk’ was associated with snobbishness, superior and inferior attitudes, and because many thought that changes in the occupational structure, housing, and lifestyles had created a large ‘ordinary’ group in the middle of society: not workless but also not privileged. Some interviewees confidently claimed a working-class identity; this was usually the case where individuals had trade union experiences and/or a close-knit, working-class community to draw on. Among younger generations, however, some said that, though older class markers had disappeared, new ones had grown up to take their place.
Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- March 2018
- ISBN:
- 9780198812579
- eISBN:
- 9780191850387
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/oso/9780198812579.003.0006
- Subject:
- History, British and Irish Modern History, Social History
This chapter uses responses to Mass Observation’s 1990 directive on ‘social divisions’ to examine what the Mass Observers thought about class. It concludes that earlier accounts have overstated these ...
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This chapter uses responses to Mass Observation’s 1990 directive on ‘social divisions’ to examine what the Mass Observers thought about class. It concludes that earlier accounts have overstated these (largely middle-class) writers’ comfortableness with technical, sociological class language. Rather, many were hostile to or ambivalent about using such terms, and drew on popular culture, especially humour, when talking about class. A rejection of ‘class’ and snobbishness, and an emphasis on ordinariness and authenticity, were again central to many Mass Observers’ writings about class. In their testimonies, we can also see that new ethnic diversity and new, more diverse norms of gender in post-war Britain had disrupted the old class categories. Upwardly mobile people were particularly over-represented among the Mass Observers and their writing shows that upward social mobility—which expanded in the post-war decades—could lead to a cultural ‘homelessness’ and critiques of both traditional working-class and traditional middle-class cultures.Less
This chapter uses responses to Mass Observation’s 1990 directive on ‘social divisions’ to examine what the Mass Observers thought about class. It concludes that earlier accounts have overstated these (largely middle-class) writers’ comfortableness with technical, sociological class language. Rather, many were hostile to or ambivalent about using such terms, and drew on popular culture, especially humour, when talking about class. A rejection of ‘class’ and snobbishness, and an emphasis on ordinariness and authenticity, were again central to many Mass Observers’ writings about class. In their testimonies, we can also see that new ethnic diversity and new, more diverse norms of gender in post-war Britain had disrupted the old class categories. Upwardly mobile people were particularly over-represented among the Mass Observers and their writing shows that upward social mobility—which expanded in the post-war decades—could lead to a cultural ‘homelessness’ and critiques of both traditional working-class and traditional middle-class cultures.