Introductory Seminar in History
Fall 2013
This seminar is an inmersion into the lives of poor people. We will seek to see their lives as they see them, that is, daily, from the ground up, from within. We will read books that offer rich, descriptive accounts of their lives, in which the authors show us the lives of the poor, rather than tell us about the lives of the poor. We will be asking WHAT poverty feels like for the poor, how they live, rather then WHY they are poor. Readings range broadly in the modern period of history, that is, from the industrial revolution to the present. We will read about the poor in England, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, and the United States.
The poor are at the center of the seminar. At our margins, and in brief articles, we will also be looking at work about the poor by contemporary scholars attempting to answer the question WHY people are poor, and what can be done about their living conditions. Almost all of the scholarly literature on the poor asks whether and/or to what extent their conditions are the result of structural and institutional causes, on the one hand, and cultural ones on the other. An all-too-simple way of stating the issue is to ask whether society causes the lives of the poor, or whether the poor cause the conditions of their lives. In other words, are we responsible, or are they? These sorts of questions will be at the background of our thoughts.
Students will keep a journal of the readings and the seminar discussions, write a 8 page report on contemporary newspaper reporting on the lives of the poor, and a final, 15 page essay on the lives of the poor. The course meets the second writing requirement of the College.
Projected readings:
- Tim Hitchcock, Down and Out in Eighteenth Century London
- Friedrich Engels, The Condition of the Working Class in England
- George Orwell, The Road to Wigan Pier
- Philip Agee, Let Us Now Praise Famous Men
- Oscar Lewis, The Children of Sanchez
- Oscar Lewis, La Vida
- Chris Van Wyk, Shirley, Goodness & Mercy: A Childhood Memoir
- Katherine Boo, Behind the Beautiful Forevers: Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai City
- Janice Perleman, Favela: Four Decades of Living on the Edge in Rio de Janeiro
- Philippe Bourgois, In Search of Respect: Selling Crack in El Barrio
- Adrian Nicole LeBlanc, Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age the Bronx
- David K. Shipler, The Working Poor: Invisible in America
