[URPE] How Class Works - 2006 conference - call for presentations

[mzweig at notes.cc.sunysb.edu]

please forward to interested individuals and lists

Deadline for proposals is December 15, 2005

HOW CLASS WORKS - 2006 
CALL FOR PRESENTATIONS

A Conference at SUNY Stony Brook
June 8-10, 2006

The Center for Study of Working Class Life is pleased to announce the How 
Class Works – 2006 Conference, to be held at the State University of New 
York at Stony Brook, June 8 - 10, 2006. Proposals for papers, 
presentations, and sessions are welcome until December 15, 2005 according 
to the guidelines below.  For more information, visit our Web site at 
<www.workingclass.sunysb.edu>.

Purpose and orientation: The conference seeks to explore ways in which an 
explicit recognition of class helps to understand the social world in 
which we live, and ways in which analysis of society can deepen our 
understanding of class as a social relationship. Presentations should take 
as their point of reference the lived experience of class; proposed 
theoretical contributions should be rooted in and illuminate social 
realities. All presentations should be accessible to an interdisciplinary 
audience.

While the focus of the conference is in the social sciences, presentations 
from other disciplines are welcome as they bear upon conference themes. 
Presentations are also welcome from people outside academic life when they 
sum up social experience in a way that contributes to the themes of the 
conference.  Formal papers will be welcome but are not required.

Conference themes: The conference welcomes proposals for presentations 
that advance our understanding of any of the following themes. 

The mosaic of class, race, and gender. To explore how class shapes racial, 
gender, and ethnic experience and how different racial, gender, and ethnic 
experiences within various classes shape the meaning of class.

Class, power, and social structure. To explore the social content of 
working, middle, and capitalist classes in terms of various aspects of 
power; to explore ways in which class and structures of power interact, at 
the workplace and in the broader society.

Class and community. To explore ways in which class operates outside the 
workplace in the communities where people of various classes live.

Class in a global economy. To explore how class identity and class 
dynamics are influenced by globalization, including experience of 
cross-border organizing, capitalist class dynamics, international labor 
standards.

Middle class? Working class? What's the difference and why does it matter? 
To explore the claim that the U.S. is a middle class society and contrast 
it with the notion that the working class is the majority; to explore the 
relationships between the middle class and the working class, and between 
the middle class and the capitalist class.

Class, public policy, and electoral politics. To explore how class affects 
public policy, with special attention to health care, the criminal justice 
system, labor law, poverty, tax and other economic policy, housing, and 
education; to explore the place of electoral politics in the arrangement 
of class forces on policy matters.

Pedagogy of class. To explore techniques and materials useful for teaching 
about class, at K-12 levels, in college and university courses, and in 
labor studies and adult education courses.

How to submit proposals for How Class Works – 2006 Conference

Proposals for presentations must include the following information: a) 
title; b) which of the seven conference themes will be addressed; c) a 
maximum 250 word summary of the main points, methodology, and slice of 
experience that will be summed up; d) relevant personal information 
indicating institutional affiliation (if any) and what training or 
experience the presenter brings to the proposal; e) presenter's name, 
address, telephone, fax, and e-mail address. A person may present in at 
most two conference sessions. To allow time for discussion, sessions will 
be limited to three twenty-minute or four fifteen-minute principal 
presentations. Sessions will not include official discussants.

Proposals for sessions are welcome. A single session proposal must include 
proposal information for all presentations expected to be part of it, as 
detailed above, with some indication of willingness to participate from 
each proposed session member. 

Submit proposals as hard copy by mail to the How Class Works  - 2006 
Conference, Center for Study of Working Class Life, Department of 
Economics, SUNY, Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384 or as an e-mail attachment to 
<michael.zweig at stonybrook.edu>.

Timetable:  Proposals must be postmarked by December 15, 2005. 
Notifications will be mailed on January 16, 2006. The conference will be 
at SUNY Stony Brook June 8- 10, 2006.  Conference registration and housing 
reservations will be possible after February 15, 2006. Details and updates 
will be posted at http://www.workingclass.sunysb.edu.

Conference coordinator: 
Michael Zweig
Director, Center for Study of Working Class Life
Department of Economics
SUNY
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4384
631.632.7536
michael.zweig at stonybrook.edu