ILRIC 2385

Last Updated

  • Schedule of Classes - September 9, 2021 7:14PM EDT
  • Course Catalog - September 9, 2021 7:15PM EDT

ILRIC 2385
Money, Work, and Power

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2020-2021.

This course will explore key topics in the critical study of labor and capitalism through the lens of food. Questions of race, gender,and class, but also toxicity, settler colonialism, as well as production and reproduction can all be read in the landscapes of food provision and procurement. Food is the ground for an array of labor processes—planting, harvesting, transporting, serving,and eating, just to name a few. Some of these forms of work are overt (stooped workers toiling in pesticide ridden field, for example). But some of these forms of work are invisible and unpaid. And sometimes, they are incredibly well remunerated but totally shadowy. By studying these different forms of work comparatively, we can understand genealogies and futures of inequality, resource use, and the nature of work itself. As this is a writing seminar, we will think not only about how to write but also about the effects of writing in the world. We will think about genre and representation, particularly as writing on food shapes the lives of the often racialized and sexualized workerswho bring food into being.

When Offered Spring.

Permission Note Enrollment limited to: ILR sophomores or permission of the instructor.

Satisfies Requirement Satisfies the ILR Advanced Writing requirement.

View Enrollment Information

Syllabi:

  •   Regular Academic Session. 

  • 3 Credits GradeNoAud

  • 18027 ILRIC 2385   SEM 101

  •  
    • MW Online Meeting
    • Feb 8 - May 14, 2021

    • Besky, S

  • Instruction Mode: Online
    This course fulfills the ILR Advanced Writing requirement. Enrollment is restricted to ILR Sophomores and others with permission of the instructor.
    In this course, we will explore critical, ethnographic, and historical forms of writing about three of the pillars of capitalism: money, work, and power. Though these pillars may seem self-explanatory, their meanings change depending on context. Focusing on work by anthropologists, geographers, and historians, we will learn how attention to context can help critically engage key concepts that animate the global economy. These concepts include ones about supply and demand, fair trade, meritocracy, debt, and even the “newness” of the so-called “new” economy of temporary and “gig” labor. To tie these themes together, students will develop a variety of writing skills. We begin with writing as a form of responsive reading. Here we will learn to use writing as a method of breaking complex ideas down into digestible parts. We will spend the middle portion of the semester discussing the essay as a form of structured argument. Here we will develop skills in comparing, contrasting, and synthesizing the arguments of others. Finally, we will practice writing as a form of narrating social life, or ethnography. Here, we will learn how to turn our own observations of the contemporary economy into original arguments, putting ourselves into conversation with other scholars.

Syllabi:

  •   Regular Academic Session. 

  • 3 Credits GradeNoAud

  • 20798 ILRIC 2385   SEM 102

  •  
    • TR Online Meeting
    • Feb 8 - May 14, 2021

    • Besky, S

  • Instruction Mode: Online