This week, ending in November 20 2014:
Today's thread is for open discussion of:
History in the academy
Historiographical disputes, debates and rivalries
Implications of historical theory both abstractly and in application
Philosophy of history
And so on
Regular participants in the Thursday threads should just keep doing what they've been doing; newcomers should take notice that this thread is meant for open discussion only of matters like those above, not just anything you like -- we'll have a thread on Friday for that, as usual.
Two things today -- one an announcement, and one a question:
I'm very happy to report that my latest article has been accepted with only a few cosmetic revisions requested. The two readers' reports were very enthusiastic, and this is the most satisfying line through an item on my to-do list in a very long time. The down side is that it's not entirely "in-field" for me, but oh well -- it's still a subject about which I'm very passionate.
Have any of you had experience with teaching in continuing education programs, whether within your institutions or outside in the community? I've just wrapped up a two-month course at a local community center teaching Canadian Short Fiction to a group of very cool retirees, and I cannot recommend this sort of thing enough. Have any of you taught such a thing? What sort of approach did you take, and what was the subject matter?
I've been reading up on the body and social / economic forces for a chapter on workers' health and work-related illness during deindustrialization. David Harvey's "The Body as Accumulation Strategy" is my starting point, but I'd love to hear some discussion on this topic.
Essentially, Harvey argues that "the body" is the site on which race, gender, and class is reproduced. The body is also active, as it shapes itself in response to environment. The mode of production, then, is based upon the production of workers' bodies. In this, Harvey draws upon Marx's "bodily subject," and describes this as both a receptacle and active agent; it is both effected by the forces of production and acts in resistance to those forces. As "variable capital," or labour power, is extracted from workers' bodies, the effects are oftentimes injury or illness. Here, Harvey identifies a "contradiction of capitalism" - healthy bodies are required for work, but unhealthy bodies are often produced. Those who are unable to function in the role of variable capital are useless, except - of course - as consumers. Here Harvey moves into an entire discussion of globalization and the uneven value of labour, but I think that's a little aside from my own focus.
Does anybody else have other insight into issues surrounding the concept of "the body" in relation to social or economic forces? I know that there is a literature out there surrounding sensory perception and how people make meaning out of sensory experiences, but I am not very familiar in that realm. Any recommendations on where else to look on this subject? Thanks!
I've come across a phrase recently called historical material perspective, which when I searched on Wikipedia it mentioned that it had some aspects of interpreting things based on one class surviving off of the labor of another. It sounded very Marxist to me, and I so I was wondering, how has Marxism come to influence the practice and interpretation of historical writings? Not the writings themselves, like someone's memoir, but the interpretations of said writings by historians in academia?