Politics of Leisure and Recreation Feb. 19, 2008

Paid Annual Leave/Paid Vacation Time in OECD Countries

Response Paper Due Tuesday Feb 26: Requires you to read Bourdieu and view (or read) the Great Gatsby Response Paper ( words) Due Tuesday Feb 26: Requires you to read Bourdieu and view (or read) the Great Gatsby Response Paper ( words)

Pierre Bourdieu French sociologist Son of a sharecropper Entered Ecole Normale Superieur Conducted research in Algeria, France Sociology as a Combat Sport French sociologist Son of a sharecropper Entered Ecole Normale Superieur Conducted research in Algeria, France Sociology as a Combat Sport

Refining Marx Offers a more complex model of class relations than the dichotomy of the dominant/subordinate Leads us to pay attention to the cultural and symbolic dimensions of class Offers a more complex model of class relations than the dichotomy of the dominant/subordinate Leads us to pay attention to the cultural and symbolic dimensions of class

Key Ideas Cultural Capital Habitus Cultural Capital Habitus

Cultural Capital Refers to non-material types of wealth, such as access to knowledge, trend- setting taste cultures in leisure and consumer culture access to cultural capital was important way to acquire social prestige and success Refers to non-material types of wealth, such as access to knowledge, trend- setting taste cultures in leisure and consumer culture access to cultural capital was important way to acquire social prestige and success

Habitus the system of structured, structuring dispositions It is a set of embodied dispositions It is set by the historically and socially situated conditions of its production the system of structured, structuring dispositions It is a set of embodied dispositions It is set by the historically and socially situated conditions of its production

The logic of consumption is reasonable without being the product of reasoned design, less of rational calculation

Key Claims Aesthetic stances adopted in matters like cosmetics, clothing, or home decoration are opportunities to experience or assert one’s position in social space, as rank to be upheld or a distance to be kept” (57)

“Consumption presupposes practical or explicit mastery of a cipher or code… A work of art has meaning and interest only for someone who possesses the cultural competence, that is, the code, into which it is encoded.”

“The field of drinks, for instance, or household furnishings…allow the most fundamental social differences to be expressed almost as completely as through the most complex and refined expressive systems available in the legitimate arts”

“At stake in every struggle over art there is also the imposition of an art of living, that is, the transmutation of an arbitrary way of living into the legitimate way of life”

Response Feb. 26 OnBourdieu-Gatsby 1. Economic power is first and foremost a power to keep economic necessity at arm’s length. This is why it universally asserts itself by the destruction of riches, conspicuous consumption, squandering and every form of gratuitous luxury.

2. Social classes, especially the ruling and intellectual classes, reproduce themselves even under the pretence that society fosters social mobility.They do so through“aesthetic stances adopted in matters like cosmetics, clothing, or home decoration, which are opportunities to experience or assert one’s position in social space, as rank to be upheld OR a distance to be kept” (57).

Using the Great Gatsby as your ethnographic case study, discuss these quotations and apply them to the lives of key characters in the film. You may also refer to F. Scott Fitzgerald’s book The Great Gatsby upon which the film is based.

3) When the “have nots” adopt the leisure practices of the wealthy, what happens? According to Bourdieu, does social change occur? How and in what ways? Do you agree with his perspective?

Feb 21 Thursday lecture In Bourdieu’s analysis, what are the key social institutions that confer cultural capital

Feb 26 and 28 Seminar Discussion will build from response paper questions Lecture: Enriching the Bourdieuan perspective Discussion will build from response paper questions Lecture: Enriching the Bourdieuan perspective