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….
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Issue 1: Deindustrialization and the New Cultures of Work, Peer Reviewed Articles
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…
Issue 1: Deindustrialization and the New Cultures of Work
Introduction: The Spirit of Capital in an Age of Deindustrialization
Max Weber’s The Protestant Ethic famously seeks out what he terms a “spirit of capitalism” in the development of “duty in a calling.” For Weber, the peculiarly unfulfilling experience of…
Contemporaries Essays
My Struggle, vol. 6: Dan, January 4
Greenpoint, NY Dear friends, It is, he claims—all of it—a marriage fight. Call it marital realism, a demon released by the couple form. Call it a gaslight novel. Linda projected…
Contemporaries Essays
My Struggle, vol. 6: Omari, January 2
Toronto, Ontario, Canada It does no good to write autobiographical fiction cause the minute the book hits the stand here comes your mama screamin how could you and sighin death…
Contemporaries Essays, Interviews
Contemporaries Essays
Intergenerational Feminist: A Conversation with Jamia Wilson
Jamia Wilson began her career as a nonprofit leader by doing campus outreach and action-fund coordination for Planned Parenthood. She has since served as Vice President of Programs at the…
Contemporaries Essays
Itinerant Feminist: A Conversation with Jennifer Baumgardner
Starting as an intern at Ms. magazine in 1993, Jennifer Baumgardner became the youngest editor in the magazine’s history in 1997. She left in 1998, working since as a prolific activist, filmmaker, public…
Contemporaries Essays
My Struggle, vol. 6: Marit MacArthur, December 6
Davis, California Dear interlocutors, Fecal transplants are the future. I appreciated the figurative spirit of Jacob’s riff on Knausgaard’s shit, if not the substance. But yeah, I would argue that…
Contemporaries Essays
My Struggle, vol. 6: Cecily, December 4
Princeton, New Jersey Dear friends, Two disclaimers: I gave birth to my second child one month ago and I have not yet read the Hitler section of Book 6. Note…