Whatever Happened to Class?


Book Description

Class explains much in the differentiation of life chances and political dynamics in South Asia; scholarship from the region contributed much to class analysis. Yet class has lost its previous centrality as a way of understanding the world and how it changes. This outcome is puzzling; new configurations of global economic forces and policy have widened gaps between classes and across sectors and regions, altered people’s relations to production, and produced new state-citizen relations. Does market triumphalism or increased salience of identity politics render class irrelevant? Has rapid growth in aggregate wealth obviated long-standing questions of inequality and poverty? Explanations for what happened to class vary, from intellectual fads to global transformations of interests. The authors ask what is lost in the move away from class, and what South Asian experiences tell us about the limits of class analysis. Empirical chapters examine formal and informal-sector labor, social movements against genetic engineering, and politics of the "new middle class." A unifying analytical concern is specifying conditions under which interests of those disadvantaged by class systems are immobilized, diffused, coopted -- or autonomously recognized and acted upon politically: the problematic transition of classes in themselves to classes for themselves.




Whatever Happened to Miss Herbermen's Class?


Book Description

Whatever Happened to Miss Herbermen's Class? “–Your class? She must be insane in her brain.” Miss Herbermen, Wendy St. John’s teacher, decided to invite her whole fifth-grade class to an important event—but Roberto (Wendy’s friend) and Wanda (Wendy’s sister) think inviting her class is a crazy thing for Miss Herbermen to do. Wanda and Roberto think Miss Herbermen needs to take a long vacation from her class, instead. How does Wendy (a Christian girl) survive Della Thompson, the class bully, who wants to make her miserable? How does she help Roberto, her troubled neighbor, who has a crush on her? What happens when she invites her class to her church, and they take her up on the offer? Do they drive her insane before the school year ends, or what? This book is not sweet. It contains bullying and fistfights, an unwanted kiss attempt, an absent-minded, gung-ho substitute teacher, a hard-nosed, attentive substitute teacher, a hard-headed girl in high-heeled shoes, a teacher’s nervous breakdown and repentance, Christian bible scriptures, discussions about: death, Christianity, shoplifting, and drug and alcohol usage. Whatever Happened to Miss Herbermen’s Class takes a look at the life of a preteen girl; her relationship with Christ, her family, her friends, and her classmates. It’s a trip that just might make you cry, make you laugh, and entertain you.




Whatever Happened to the Egyptians?


Book Description

The 'missing link,' Amin argues, lies in the social mobility unleashed by the July Revolution of 1952, which has changed the customs and habits, moral and material values, and patterns of consumption and investment of the aspiring classes, and has, furthermore, induced the Egyptian people to ignore national and ideological issues of grave importance."--BOOK JACKET.




Whatever Happened to the Egyptian Revolution?


Book Description

In his latest exploration of the Egyptian malaise, Galal Amin first looks at the events of the months preceding the Revolution of 25 January 2011, pointing out the most important factors behind popular discontent. He then follows the ups and downs (mainly the downs) of the Revolution: the causes of rising hopes and expectations, mingled with successive disappointments, sometimes verging on despair, not least in the case of the presidential elections, when the Egyptian people were invited to choose between a rock and a hard place. This is followed by an outline of a possible brighter future for Egypt, based on a more balanced and faster growing economy, and a more democratic and equitable society, within a truly independent, modern, and secular state. The story of what happened to the 2011 Revolution may be a sad one, but if viewed within the larger context of Egypt's economic and social developments of the last century, on which the author's previous books threw very useful light, it can be regarded as one important step forward toward a much better future.




How Good is David Mamet, Anyway?


Book Description

The legendary Greek figure Orpheus was said to have possessed magical powers capable of moving all living and inanimate things through the sound of his lyre and voice. Over time, the Orphic theme has come to indicate the power of music to unsettle, subvert, and ultimately bring down oppressive realities in order to liberate the soul and expand human life without limits. The liberating effect of music has been a particularly important theme in twentieth-century African American literature. The nine original essays in Black Orpheus examines the Orphic theme in the fiction of such African American writers as Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Claude McKay, James Baldwin, Nathaniel Mackey, Sherley Anne Williams, Ann Petry, Ntozake Shange, Alice Walker, Gayl Jones, and Toni Morrison. The authors discussed in this volume depict music as a mystical, shamanistic, and spiritual power that can miraculously transform the realities of the soul and of the world. Here, the musician uses his or her music as a weapon to shield and protect his or her spirituality. Written by scholars of English, music, women's studies, American studies, cultural theory, and black and Africana studies, the essays in this interdisciplinary collection ultimately explore the thematic, linguistic structural presence of music in twentieth-century African American fiction.




What Really Happened to the Class of '93


Book Description

Through his classmates' intensely personal stories from a decade defined by Monica Lewinsky, economic downturn and 9/11, Colin presents an arresting picture of an extraordinary era.