Kommentar: "Hillbilly," "redneck," or "white trash," many, mostly pejorative terms exist for the poor white underclass in America. Although the use of their labor power has historically been essential to the construction of American society, the wishful image of a classless American dream has long been extremely powerful. With Donald Trump's election victory and the rise of right-wing populist movements, which are particularly associated with the resentment of disconnected poor rural regions in the U.S., the white underclass has entered the media (for example in films like "Winter's Bone" or "Hillbilly Elegy") and also social science agenda. While some just scandalize them as degenerated, uneducated and resentful underclass, others interpret their situation more profoundly in the context of global neoliberalism and processes of deindustrialization, unemployment, hopelessness and social decline. The seminar will attempt to approach the phenomenon of "white trash" on the basis of current sociologically relevant US-American studies and media representations and shall thus give insights in an ongoing American debate. The thematic spectrum ranges from the historical roots of the white underclass in the US, its media representations to current findings of its social and health decline in the context of the opioid crisis. It will be asked which social situations, facts and processes of change are hidden behind the classist attributions and cultural representations.
The seminar will be held in English. Participation requirements include the willingness to read exclusively English-written texts and to give a short keynote presentation in English.
Selected Literature:
Isenberg, Nancy (2016): White Trash. The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America. Penguin.
Sherman, Jennifer (2021): Dividing Paradise. Rural Inequality and the Diminishing American Dream. University of California Press.
Williams, Joan C. (2020): White Working Class. Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America. Harvard Business Review Press.
Duncan, Cynthia M. (2014): Worlds Apart. Poverty and Politics in Rural America. Yale University Press.
Davidson, Osha Gray (1996): Broken Heartland. The Rise of America’s Rural Ghetto. University of Iowa Press. |