Shaun Scott, “Millennials and the Moments that Made Us: A Cultural History of the U.S. from 1982-Present” (Zero Books, 2018)
In Millennials and the Moments that Made Us: A Cultural History of the U.S. from 1982-Present (Zero Books, 2018), Shaun Scott critiques the America millennials inherited and using a pop culture lens to explore how they navigate it. Starting in 1982 as the birth of millennials, Scott examines how millennials have been impacted by the economic and social changes of the 1980s and neoliberalism. Scott takes readers through defining moments and experiences such as latchkey parents, changing representations of masculinity, pop culture feminism, September 11th, and Hurricane Katrina. He uses popular culture examples to define these moments comparing September 11th to Jay-Z’s The Blueprint and using the career of LeBron James to critique corporate relocation and its effects on economic livelihoods. Scott’s well-research book presents readers with a challenge to rethink how millennials are defined and critiqued as he challenges millennials to learn from the mistakes of the past and work for lasting change. Rebekah Buchanan is an Associate Professor of English at Western Illinois University. Her work examines the role of narrative in peoples lives. She researches zines, zine writers and the influence of music subcultures and fandom on writers and narratives. You can find more about her on her website, follow her on Twitter @rj_buchanan or email her at rj-buchanan@wiu.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
18 Sep 20171h
Sarah Haley, “No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity” (UNC Press, 2016)
Recent popular and scholarly interest has highlighted the complex and brutal system of mass incarceration in the United States. Much of this interest has focused on recent developments while other scholars have revealed the connections between the development of the prison system after Reconstruction and the legacies of slavery. In her new book, No Mercy Here: Gender, Punishment, and the Making of Jim Crow Modernity (University of North Carolina Press, 2016), Sarah Haley points to an often under recognized part of this history. Haley, an associate professor of gender studies and African American Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, focuses on the Southern criminal justice system’s treatment and exploitation of black women during the Jim Crow era. Though black women were caught up in the criminal justice system in smaller numbers than men were, Haley shows their treatment was very important to the development of Jim Crow modernity. The brutal and violent treatment, the ideological narratives surrounding black women, and the exploitation of their labor were all key in creating the ideologies of racial capitalism and patriarchy. Haley also discusses the ways black women resisted this treatment and contented the related ideologies. In this episode of New Books in History, Haley discusses No Mercy Here and this history of gender, criminal justice, and race. She tells listeners about some of experiences of black women in this criminal justice system, explaining the development of the system from convict leasing to chain gangs with an the exploitative parole system. Haley also clearly explains the ideological role this system played in the development of the Jim Crow system. Finally, Haley also discusses some of her research and the challenges of accurately and thoroughly portraying the experiences of women whose voices were mediated by the criminal justice system. Christine Lamberson is an Assistant Professor of History at Angelo State University. Her research and teaching focuses on 20th century U.S. political and cultural history. Shes currently working on a book manuscript about the role of violence in shaping U.S. political culture in the 1960s and 1970s. She can be reached at clamberson@angelo.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
15 Sep 201755min
Aled Davies, “The City of London and Social Democracy: The Political Economy of Finance in Post-war Britain” (Oxford UP, 2017)
In the decades following the end of the Second World War, the British economy evolved from a manufacturing-based economy to one driven by service industries, most notably finance. As Aled Davies explains in his book The City of London and Social Democracy: The Political Economy of Finance in Post-war Britain (Oxford University Press, 2017), this shift posed a challenge to the prevailing concept of social democracy in Britain, one to which politicians, particularly those on the left, struggled to respond. With British industry facing growing competition abroad, successive governments in the 1960s and 1970s sought investment capital in order to maintain that sector’s viability. Efforts were made to encourage institutional investors such as pension and insurance funds to devote more of their industrial investment to long-term development rather than short-term profit, while many on the left of the Labour Party in the 1970s advocated nationalizing the banks as a means of channeling resources into the sector. Such proposals, however, were countered with calls to liberalize and deregulate the financial sector, many of which were advanced by trade associations and other bodies within the financial sector whose growing influence reflected the increasing importance of the City both as a part of the economy and within national politics. Their success in resisting intervention, Davies concludes, presaged the market-driven approach pursued by Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government after 1979, one which continues to define British policy down to the present day. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
12 Sep 201748min
Rosemary Lucy Hill, “Gender, Metal and the Media: Women Fans and the Gendered Experience of Music” (Palgrave Macmillan 2016)
How do women experience and participate in Metal? This question forms the core of Gender, Metal and the Media: Women Fans and the Gendered Experience of Music (Palgrave Macmillan 2016), the new book from Rosemary Lucy Hill, a lecturer in sociology at the University of Leeds. Hill’s book is both empirically detailed, drawing on analysis of Metal media, and theoretically rich, engaging with a range of work on music and gender. The book outlines the imagined community of Metal, thinking through the myths underpinning that community. By exploring myths of equality and authenticity, along with the problematic tropes of “warriors” and “groupies,” the analysis makes clear the gendered tensions of Metal fandom.The book concludes with some thoughts on how to build a new cultural vision for Metal, which will realize the promise of egalitarianism offered in much of the community and in the music. It will be essential reading across sociology, music, and media studies, as well as for all Metalheads too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
5 Sep 201748min
Brooke Erin Duffy “(Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media and Aspirational Work” (Yale UP, 2017)
What is life like in the aspirational economy? In (Not) Getting Paid to Do What You Love: Gender, Social Media and Aspirational Work (Yale University Press, 2017) Brooke Erin Duffy, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at Cornell University, explores the working life of bloggers, social media stars, and online influencers (not) making a living in and around the fashion industry. The core of the book is the idea of aspirational labour, which captures the demands of trying to get in and get on in this precarious form of work. Aspirational labour is theorised in conjunction with gender and the broader inequalities of production and consumption in consumer culture. The book then uses this frame to explore the big winners of the social media economy, alongside detailing the hidden costs to being authentic and effortless online, as well as reflecting on the impact of aspirational labour on many other areas of economy and society. The book is packed with rich and detailed interview data, and is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand contemporary consumer culture. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
16 Aug 201738min
Ivan Ascher, “Portfolio Society: A Capitalist Mode of Prediction” (Zone Books, 2016)
Is Marx still relevant? Any social scientist will answer with a resounding yes! In what he refers to as a thought experiment, Ivan Ascher uses Marx to understand the financial market. In Portfolio Society: A Capitalist Mode of Prediction (Zone Books, 2016), Ascher focuses on the arc and narratives found in Capital, using them to analyze risk, credit, and the financial market downfall of 2008. Ascher encourages the reader to explore how we might be able to understand what is going on today by looking back at Marx’s understanding of capitalism. The reader will come across familiar characters, like moneybags and vampires, and familiar concepts from Marx, like fetishism and co-dependence within the market. The nice thing about this book is that you do not need prior knowledge of Marx or financial markets, though those who have knowledge of either or both will still find great pleasure in this thought experiment. This book would be enjoyed by sociologists or political scientists in general, alongside those interested in financial markets. It would be especially useful in a theory course where students could make connections between Marx and Ascher’s narratives. Sarah E. Patterson is a postdoc at the University of Western Ontario. You can follow and tweet her at @spattersearch. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
12 Aug 201729min
Ilana Gershon, “Down and Out in the New Economy: How People Find (or Don’t Find) Work Today” (U. Chicago Press, 2017)
Labor markets are not what they used to be, as Ilana Gershon argues in Down and Out in the New Economy: How People Find (or Don’t Find) Work Today (University of Chicago Press, 2017). Job seekers are increasingly being taught that they need to sell themselves as if they were their own business, and what will set them apart from other applicants is not their skills or their experience, but the distinctiveness of their brand. Join us for a provocative discussion about how workers are being taught to position themselves to employers, and how modern labor markets, as a consequence, differ from those in the past — and why that matters. Stephen Pimpare is Senior Lecturer in the Politics & Society Program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire. He is the author of The New Victorians (New Press, 2004), A People’s History of Poverty in America (New Press, 2008), winner of the Michael Harrington Award, and Ghettos, Tramps and Welfare Queens: Down and Out on the Silver Screen (Oxford University Press, 2017). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
6 Aug 201744min
David Beer, “Metric Power” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016)
How do metrics rule the social world? In Metric Power (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016) David Beer, Reader in Sociology at the University of York, outlines the rise of the metric and the role of metrics in shaping everyday life. The book outlines the core theoretical concepts, such as neo-liberalism, bio-power, and bio-politics, alongside the characteristics themes of metric power, including practices of making (in)visible, the social life of methods and data, and questions of agency. These theoretical discussions are set against the broad backdrop of the rise of big data, corporate power, social media, and algorithm based decision making. Metric Power is located within the study of broader social inequalities, meaning the book makes important reading for anyone concerned with how our daily experiences of technologies, organisations, and social institutions, are shaped, unequally, by the power of metrics. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/critical-theory
2 Aug 201734min
