Working

The average person spends one third of her life working. But what is work? Why do we do it? Whose labor is valued, and whose is invisible? From textile factories to the girl boss, this course looks at the cultural imagination of work in the United States. Possible texts include fiction by Ottessa Moshfegh, Lucia Berlin, and Herman Melville; films Modern Times, Problemista, and I Love Boosters; nonfiction writing by Studs Terkel and Barbara Ehrenreich; and works by visual artists from the nineteenth century to the present. We will also explore related materials in visits to Stanford Special Collections and Cantor Arts Center. For their final assignment, students will conduct oral histories or produce original creative or critical work.