"'Certain Dangerous Tendencies:' Nineteenth-Century American
Working-Class Popular Culture," CFP, Modern Language Association, New
York City, 12/02.
While the study of popular culture has proliferated, its objects of
study are still primarily based in the twentieth century. This panel
will explore popular culture and its relationship to the working class
in nineteenth-century America-a time when working-class culture began to
receive attention from middle-class critics and reformers who feared
"certain dangerous tendencies" were emerging among the laboring classes.
Papers are invited which examine nineteenth-century popular culture,
such as serialized fiction, melodrama, broadsides, and the popular
press, through multiple methodologies, but interdisciplinary approaches
are particularly welcome. Suggested questions to discuss include what
role did popular culture play in changing gender ideologies and
discourses? How did consumers respond to the increasing availability of
commercialized culture? How were genres developed or reformatted as a
result of new technologies and audience demands? What role did regional
variations play? How were class issues articulated in popular culture?
How did writers and producers represent genre in popular culture and in
what ways did these representation differ from proceeding genres, high
art, or middle-class culture? In what ways was popular culture
contested? What role did middle-class concerns play in shaping
working-class culture?
Send a 1-2 page abstract, a brief C.V., and affirmation of MLA
membership by e-mail to fcarr1@gmu.edu or to: Felicia Carr, Cultural
Studies Program, George Mason University, MSN 5E4, 4400 University Blvd,
Fairfax, VA 22030. Abstracts are due by March 15th, 2002. Presenters
must be MLA members by April 1, 2002 and can appear in the program as a
speaker, chair, or respondent only twice.
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