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Note: The following is a CFP posted to many electronic lists which
provoked a very pointed critique by Dr. Roger Horowitz of the Hagley
Museum at the University of Delaware. It raises some very interesting
points that reminded me of the discussion about postmodernist economics
some time ago on HES. The CFP is first and is immediately followed by Dr.
Horowitz's remarks.
Any comments?
Ross Emmett
Editor, HES
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Call for Papers
CULTURE AND POVERTY
The Radical History Review, an independent, academic
journal of history, politics, and culture published by Cambridge
University Press, plans a special issue for Fall 1997 devoted to
the theme of CULTURE AND POVERTY. This issue is conceived as
both a political and scholarly intervention. It will present
work that examines the production of poverty through political,
economic, and cultural practices; illuminates the ways in which
discourses on poverty and wealth have been shaped, controlled,
and deployed; and suggests how scholars on the left might
intervene in public debates on the production of wealth and
poverty within and across national boundaries.
We seek papers which:
-examine the role of culture in the construction and
representation of poverty and wealth
-investigate the ideological workings of hierarchies of race,
ethnicity, gender, class, and sexuality within popular
representations of poverty
-study cultural representations of poverty and processes of
cultural imperialism with a transnational or comparative
perspective
-explore how dominant discourses on poverty have been contested
and reconstructed within poor communities
-challenge narratives and ideologies that criminalize and
pathologize poor people
-make connections between representations of poverty and policy
making processes
-investigate narratives of assimilation and upward mobility in
the construction of race and class
-examine the cultural production of poverty through photography,
fine art, literature, film, video, television, music and other
cultural forms
-suggest strategies for intervention in public debates on poverty
and culture including submissions which experiment with
alternative forms for diverse audiences
-adress methods for teaching courses that deal with these issues
Please send submissions to Managing Editor, Radical History
Review, Tamiment Library, 70 Washington Square South, New York,
New York 10012.
Inquiries to Adina Back or Kevin Murphy at aqb2865@is2.nyu.edu or
to the RHR office at 212-998-2632.
Submission deadline: November 15, 1996
Date: Thu, 08 Feb 1996 09:33:19 -0600
Subject: Re: CFP: Culture and Poverty
<roger horowitz rh@strauss.udel.edu>
I can't help commenting on the recent call for papers by the Radical
History Review for its culture and poverty issue. Once upon a time, this
journal talked about real people and social movements, and published
pathbreaking work in those areas. Now it seems content to focus on
"representations of poverty" (the phrase appears five times), "narratives"
(twice), or "cultural production." The only time the venerable terms
"economic" and "political" appear is in the prologue; and the absence of
any specific guidelines for papers on those topics indicates the true
priorities of the journal's editors.
Hey, what happened to looking at poverty as a real condition, and at poor
people, and their efforts to change their conditions? I don't object to
the cultural turn for its attention to areas that economic and political
historians once neglected, but it is absurd and hardly radical to talk
about poverty only in terms of representation, narrative, or cultural
production. This is especially true because the last two clauses of the
call for papers ask for contributions on how to intervene politically on
these issues and how to incorporate these issues into courses. How can
these latter two elements be accomplished without attending to both the
economic and political causes of poverty, and the efforts of poor people
to change their lives? How can we talk about the "representations" of
poverty without incorporating how poor people, through their own social
movements, have had such a dramatic impact on these representations?
For some time the extreme cultural turn of Radical History Review has been
a source of dismay to longtime readers. I terminated my subscription two
years ago for this reason, although I continue to follow the journal. By
all means include issues of representation and discourse on poverty --
they are important and exciting areas of scholarly inquiry, especially in
the blossoming feminist scholarship on the welfare state. But to do so at
the expense of attention to social movements against poverty, the
economics of poverty, and political reasons for poverty, is to contradict
the very name of the journal.
Dr. Roger Horowitz
Associate Director
Center for the History of Business, Technology, and Society
Hagley Museum and Library
PO Box 3630
Wilmington DE 19807
302-658-2401
email: rh@strauss.udel.edu
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