Carnegie Mellon University
May 06, 2015

Locating Social Class

Geography, Home, and Mythologies of Place

Locating Social Class

A Day-long Conference

This conference will look into how class ideologies can be (or have been) projected into physical spaces, and how mythologies local to a specific time and place come to bear on the lived experiences of working class people. Locations of class that will be discussed include American Appalachian communities, the Mexican-American border, and the theaters of early-modern London.
 
Organized by the English department’s “Theory and Social Class” graduate course
Presenters include MA students and PhD from CMU’s English Department

Schedule

Wednesday, May 6th (Reading Day)

All panels take place on the CMU Campus in Baker Hall, in the Erwin Steinberg room, Baker Hall A53. All meals and coffee breaks will take place outside the classroom, in the Baker Hall A53 lounge.
 
9:00 AM to 9:30 AM
Bagels and coffee in the Baker Hall Lounge outside of A53 Baker Hall
 
Panel 1: Literature, Nation and Sexuality

9:30 AM to 10:45 AM
 
Arianna Garofalo, "Angelheaded Hipsters and the Machinery of Capitalism: A Marxist Reading of Allen Ginsberg"
 
Aqdas Aftab, “Reading the Subaltern Body in Saadat Hasan Manto’s Short Stories”
 
Anneke Snyder, “Malinche's Legacy: A Continuing Class Struggle among Mexican-American Women”
 
10:45 AM to 11:00 AM
Coffee Break in the Baker Hall Lounge outside of A53
 
Panel 2: Identity on Display

11:00 AM to 12:30 PM
 
Karla Reid, “Digital Depictions of the 1%: A Critique of the Meritocracy”
 
Lorena Madrigal, “Response to a Stereotype: How 'Maria Poppins' Addresses Labor Issues on ABC's Latino sitcom Cristela”
 
Souri Somphanith, “Modeling Minorities: Portraits of Faking Success and Making Success in ABC’s Fresh Off the Boat”
 
William Johnson, “4chan, Anonymous and Structural Considerations of Popular Digital Activism”
 
12:30 PM to 1:00 PM
Lunch in the Baker Hall Lounge outside of A53 Baker Hall
To register for the lunch email knewman4@gmail.com

1:00 PM Keynote Address
Professor Sara Appel, a post-doc at the University of Pittsburgh and a recent graduate of Duke University, “Intersectionality, Media, and the Place of Class”

2:15 PM to 2:30 PM
Coffee Break in the Baker Hall Lounge outside of A53 Baker Hall
 
Panel 3: Time, Place and Space
 
2:30 PM to 4:00 PM
 
Nathan Pensky, “The Importance of Being a Groundling: The Dramaturgical Significance of Working Class Reception in Early-Modern Theaters ”
 
Marah Nagelhout, “Myth Making and Commodity Fetishism in Fracking Ads”
 
Ira Werner, “Buck Wild and the Modern Hillbilly Caricature: Classism in Reality Television”
 
Larissa Briley, “Winter’s Bone, Social Class, and the Real World of Methamphetamine Production in the Missouri Ozarks”

Sponsors: the CMU English Department, the Literary and Cultural Studies Colloquium,
the Center for the Arts in Society, and the CMU Graduate Assembly.

This event is free and open to the public

Wednesday, May 6, 2015
9AM - 4PM
Steinberg Auditorium
Baker Hall A-53