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Contemporaries Essays, Critique in the Trump Era

The Statue and the Veil: Postcritique in the Age of Trump

After the white nationalist demonstrations in Charlottesville, Donald Trump notoriously equivocated over the ethics of the protestors, claiming he was “not putting anybody on a moral plane,” as “there were…

Contemporaries Essays, Critique in the Trump Era

Trump’s Catastrophism, and the Left’s

Donald Trump is our catastrophist-in-chief. On the campaign trail, he portrayed America in crisis, a waning empire on the brink of collapse. He characterized ObamaCare as a “total disaster” and…

Contemporaries Essays, Critique in the Trump Era

Critique in the Trump Era

The presidency of Donald Trump has yielded a daily glut of information and misinformation. Alongside the undermining of truth itself and the devaluation of expertise, this glut challenges traditional forms…

Issue 1: Deindustrialization and the New Cultures of Work, Peer Reviewed Articles

Painful Repetition: Service Work and The Rise of the Restaurant Novel

Since the 1970s, the composition of the working class in the United States has changed dramatically. Service work now dominates the labor market. The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that…

Issue 1: Deindustrialization and the New Cultures of Work, Peer Reviewed Articles

Philippine Reproductive Fiction and Crises of Social Reproduction

The quietest, most docile worker could, behind her apron or her uniform, be sharpening a blade. —Mia Alvar, “The Miracle Worker”1 On July 19th, 1994, Sarah Balabagan, a fourteen-year-old overseas…

Issue 1: Deindustrialization and the New Cultures of Work, Peer Reviewed Articles

American Graphic Design in the 1990s: Deindustrialization and the Death of the Author

This essay offers an account of one profession’s attempt to come to terms with the meaning of work in a context of economic and technological flux. Bound from the beginning…

Issue 1: Deindustrialization and the New Cultures of Work, Peer Reviewed Articles

Issue 1: Deindustrialization and the New Cultures of Work, Peer Reviewed Articles

TV and Tipworkification

Contemporary TV demonstrates a conspicuous interest in two related kinds of employment: tipwork (waiting tables, bartending, making espressos) and the more recent form of work termed “gigwork” (temporary, project-based freelance…

Issue 1: Deindustrialization and the New Cultures of Work, Peer Reviewed Articles

The Effective Turn: Affect, Gender, and the Wages of the Labor Film

No observer of contemporary American economic life can overlook the fact that real wages have remained almost unchanged for over forty years.1 Stagnant wages seemingly scandalize liberal platitudes of progress….

Issue 1: Deindustrialization and the New Cultures of Work, Peer Reviewed Articles

Character, Genre, Labor: The Office Novel after Deindustrialization

“Minor characters,” writes Alex Woloch, “are the proletariat of the novel.”1 Defined entirely by the functional role they play — gardener, maid, or mechanic — they are never treated to…