PL 398-51 SPECIAL TOPICS: CLASS, IDENTITY AND MORALITY

Spring, 2004

Mondays and Wednesdays, 6:30 to 7:45 p.m.

Instructor: Dr. Brenda A. Wirkus

Office: B25, basement of the Administration Building

Phone: 216-397-4787

E-mail: wirkus@jcu.edu

Office hours: TBA

Also available by appointment. Please leave e-mail or voice-mail message to set up an appointment.

This “special topics” course has been designed to address contemporary issues of social class, personal identity, and morality. In particular, we shall focus on the definition and identity of the working class, contrasting it with the “middle class.” The middle class has been held up as both the norm and the average American experience. We learn and embrace from childhood onwards the myth of American social mobility, the notion that everyone can and should attain middle-class status. Our public institutions, most especially our educational institutions, have been developed to allow access to and participation in the middle class for all Americans. With a public education and with hard work, so the story goes, every American can succeed, i.e. move into the middle class. Furthermore, failure to make it into the middle class is often perceived as a moral shortcoming. Our popular culture is often insensitive and sometimes downright cruel in its portrayal of the working class. During this semester we shall investigate and interrogate these claims, and we shall read selections from philosophers, social theorists, and others who address our concerns.

This course has been designed to meet the criteria for a “D” (diversity) course. As such, our focus will be on understanding the working class and appreciating its marginalization in contemporary U.S. society. We shall explore how the life of the working class differs from that of the normative middle class. Our goal is not simply to increase understanding, however, but also to make us aware of the processes of marginalization and how they contribute to stereotyping and discrimination.

Course Objectives:

· To understand some fundamental principles of social stratification: What is the working class, what is the middle class, and why do social classes exist at all?

· To understand the philosophical assumptions about the nature of human beings, the nature of work, and the nature of society that underlie and sometimes support existing social class structures.

· To become familiar with narrative accounts, including autobiographies, of the working class experience.

· To investigate the moral implications of existing social class structures.

· To attempt to develop alternative conceptualizations of work and society that might ameliorate injustices perpetrated by existing social class structures.

· To develop both written and oral skills in the areas of clear thinking, critical evaluation, and logical presentation of arguments,

· To encourage the integrative and independent thinking characteristically developed in a 300-level philosophy course.