Past Conferences
A Conference at SUNY-Stony Brook - 2003
(March 28-29, 2003)

Conference Schedule
Wednesday June 5
8 p.m.
0.0 Opening plenary session
SAC Auditorium
“September 11 and its Aftermath
Through the Lens of Class”
Leo Panitch
York University (Toronto) – Political Science
Provost Lecture Series
Open to the public

Thursday June 6
9:00 – 10:15
Plenary Session
Auditorium
1.0 The Mosaic of Class, Race, and Gender
Bill Fletcher, President, TransAfrica
Dorothy Sue Cobble, Rutgers University
Chair: Nancy Tomes, Stony Brook – History

10:30 – noon
Simultaneous Sessions

1.1 Class, Race, and Repression in South Carolina SAC 303
Donna DeWitt, President, South Carolina AFL-CIO
Bill Fletcher, President, TransAfrica
Chair: Bill McAdoo, Stony Brook – Africana Studies

1.2 Class and Public Policy 306
William E. Bachmann, electronic technician, U.S. Postal Service, NYC
“ Public Policy Is Class Policy: The Case of the Postal Anthrax Attacks”
Alan Bloom, Valparaiso University – History
“ Follow the Money: Dispensing Charity in the Wake of Tragedy”
Gary Jones, Muhlenberg College – History
“The State Made Visible: The Formation of the Pennsylvania Department of State Police, 1905 – 1906”
Chair: Joel Rosenthal, Stony Brook - History

1.3 Class and Gender 304
Michelle Billies, Brooklyn, NY
“White Women and Class in the Matrixes of Oppression”
Christine Haylett, University of Birmingham (UK) – Human Geography
“Poor Women, You Have Nothing to Lose But Your Welfare Cheque: The Internationalizing Project of Welfare Reform”
Ellen Rosen, Brandeis University – Women’s Studies Research Center
“Social Class and Marriage”
Chair: Naomi Rosenthal, Stony Brook – Sociology
SUNY Old Westbury – American Studies

1.4 Images of Labor 302
Rachel Bernstein, Henry Foner, and Evelyn Jones Rich, LaborArts
“Using Images to Teach Working-Class History”
Sherry Linkon and John Russo, Youngstown State University – Center for Working Class Studies
“From ‘The Steel City’ to ‘A Nice Place to Do Time’: Images of Youngstown after Deindustrialization”
Kim Wilson, University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, - Labor Extension
“Making Labor History Murals in the Community”
Chair: Jim Cassidy, Stony Brook - Art

1.5 Pedagogy of Class 305
Gary Hicks, South Boston
“Globalization and Its Critics the First Time Around: Twain, Casement, Conrad, and Euro-American Imperialism, Late 19th – Early 20th Century”
Sharon O’Dair, University of Alabama – English
“ Class Work: Site of Working-Class Activism or Site of Embourgeoisement?”
Svitlana Taraban, York University, Toronto – Education
“Class Restructuring in Contemporary Ukraine and Its Effect on Education”
Chair: Paul Dolan, Stony Brook – English

1.6 Working-Class Media Projects 311
Frank Emspak, School for Workers, University of Wisconsin
“The Workers Independent News Service: Breaking the Media Blockade”
Fred Glass, California Federation of Teachers, AFT, AFL-CIO
“Them and Us: An Organizing Model for Labor Communications”
Chair: Norman Prusslin, General Manager, WUSB, 90.1 FM

2:00 – 3:15
Plenary Session
Auditorium
2.0 Class and Community
Rosalyn Baxandall and Elizabeth Ewen, SUNY Old Westbury – American Studies
Fred Rose, Springfield, Mass
Chair: Mark Aronoff, Stony Brook – Linguistics and Deputy Provost

3:30 – 5:00
Simultaneous Sessions

2.1 Class and Gender 305
Helena Worthen, University of Illinois – Chicago Labor Education Program, and
Michelle Kaminski, Michigan State University, Labor Education Program
“ Women Talk about How Labor Education Has Influenced Their Union Activism: Implications for Labor Education
Steve Meyer, University of Wisconsin at Parkside – History
“ Neckties, Red Slacks, and the Bloody Riot: Gender and Power on the Automotive Shop Floor during World War II”
Judith Wishnia, SUNY Stony Brook - History
“ A Local Strike Becomes a National Issue: Women Sardine Canners in Brittany, 1924”
Chair: Mary Jo Bona, Stony Brook – Women’s Studies

2.2 Pedagogy of Class 311
Timothy Moran, Jacqueline Smith, and Michael Schwartz, SUNY Stony Brook – Sociology
“ Global Inequalities and Pedagogical Challenges”
Rachel Rybaczuk and Oona Mia Coy, Hampshire College
“ The Transformative Impact of Class Talk for College Students”
Chair: Timothy Moran, Stony Brook

2.3 Class, Race, and the American Dream 306
Esteban Del Rio, University of San Diego – Communications
“ Categories and Constraints: Emergent Latino Subjects and the American Dream”
John Manley, Stanford University– Political Science (emeritus)
“American Liberalism and the Democratic Dream: Transcending the American Dream”
Ronald Mendel, University College Northampton (UK) – American Studies
“Dreamin’ in Class: The American Dream Considered from the Perspective of Class”
Carla Peterson, University of Maryland – English
“Protecting the Neighborhood Drugstore: Class, Race, and Community in Nineteenth-Century Lower Manhattan”
Chair: Lynda Perdomo-Ayala, Stony Brook – Pharmacological Sciences

2.4 Class and Public Policy 304
Ed Geffner, Executive Director, Project Renewal, Inc., NYC
“ Class and Institutional Response to Homelessness”
George S. Locker, Five Borough Institute, NYC
“ The Housing Shortage in New York City: Why It Pays Not to Build”
Peter Marcuse, Columbia University – Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation
“ Class in Space: Does Globalization Make a Difference?”
Chair: Ian Roxborough, Stony Brook - Sociology

2.5 Seeing through Workers’ Eyes: The Unseen America Project 302
Esther Cohen, Bread and Roses, 1199/SEIU, NYC
Matthew Septimus, Photographer, NYC
Jim Cassidy, SUNY Stony Brook – Art
Rodolfo Sorto and Nadia Marin-Molina, Workplace Project, Long Island, NY
Carol Quirke, CUNY Graduate Center, American History, graduate program
Chair: Domenica Tafuro, Stony Brook – Latin American and Caribbean Studies

2.6 Class and the Economy 303
Paddy Quick, St.Francis College – Economics
“Class and Armed Robbery”
Betsy Leondar-Wright, United for a Fair Economy
“Class and the Changing Distributions of Income and Wealth”
Doug Henwood, Editor, Left Business Observer
“Financial Markets: The Class Angle”
Chair: Debra Dwyer, Stony Brook - Economics

2.7 Film - The Uprising of ’34 308
George Stoney, Filmmaker. New York University – Tisch School of the Arts
Vera Rony, Executive producer; founding director, Center for Labor Management Studies, Stony Brook
Host: Lou Deutsch, Stony Brook – Hispanic Language and Literature

7:30
Evening Program
Theater 1 –Staller Center for the Arts
2.8 Poetry Reading
Angelo Verga
Veronica Golos
Hayan Charara
Host: Michelle Fazio, Stony Brook – English, graduate program

Playback Theater (NYC)
Host: John Lutterbie, Stony Brook - Theater

Friday June 7
9:00 – 10:15
Plenary Session
Auditorium
3.0
Class and Public Policy

Frances Fox Piven, CUNY Graduate Center – Political Science
Adolph Reed, New School University – Political Science
Chair: Ruth Brandwein, Stony Brook – School of Social Welfare

10:30 – noon
Simultaneous Sessions

3.1 Class and Religion 311
Peter Laarman, Senior Minister, Judson Memorial Church – NYC
Cathlin Baker and Paul Chapman, Co-directors, The Employment Project, Judson Memorial Church - NYC
“ Religion and Class Invisibility”
Fred Rose, Springfield, Massachusetts
“ Building a Multi-class, Multi-racial Labor-Religion Coalition – Lessons from the Pioneer Valley Project” Chair: Linda Pfeiffer, Stony Brook – Political Science

3.2 Class and the Labor Process 302
Sharryn M. Kasmir, Hofstra University – Anthropology
“ Post-Fordism and Subjectivity: The Case of the Saturn Automobile Corporation”
Magdalena Raczynska – Rutgers University – School of Management and Labor Relations, graduate program
“ Blurred Authority or Blurred Identity? The Role of Collective Identity in the Transformation of New Employment Relations”
Charley Richardson, University of Massachusetts at Lowell – Labor Extension Program
“ Technology and Power on the Shop Floor”
Tim Strangleman, University of Nottingham (UK) – Sociology and Social Policy
“ Class and the End of Work”
Chair: Chris Sellers, Stony Brook - History

3.3 Revisioning Families: Welfare Moms and Media Representation 304

Anne M. Wiley, Greenfield Community College (GCC) – Psychology and Women’s Studies
Suzanne McGowan, GCC - Counselor
Rosemarie Freeland, GCC – Women’s Center Advocate
Joel Saxe, GCC – Art/Video
Chair: Anne M. Wiley

3.4 Class and Consumption 305
Andrew Arnold, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – History
“ Louis D. Brandeis, Mother Jones, and the Loopholes in Laissez Faire”
Rosanne Currarino, University of Pennsylvania - Humanities Forum
“ Hours of Labor: The Eight-hour Day, Leisure, and the Consumer Citizen in Gilded Age America”
Janet F. Davidson, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Washington DC
“ Trashy or Classy? Trailer Life in the 1930s”
Charis Ng, SUNY Stony Brook – Sociology, graduate program
“ Casino Gambling: Age and Class”
Chair: Janet F. Davidson

3.5 Class and Race 306
Ted Allen, Brooklyn, NY
“ Race and Class in U.S. History”
Joshua Freeman, CUNY Graduate Center – History
“ They Never Called Themselves White: Racial and Ethnic Categorizations by New York City Unions after World War II”
Preston Smith, Mt. Holyoke College – Politics
“ Class Structure of Post World War II Chicago”
Chair: Donna DiDonato, Stony Brook – College of Arts and Sciences

3.6 Pedagogy of Class 303
Alan Bloom, Valparaiso University – History
“Teaching the Industrial Revolution: An Exercise in Mid-Nineteenth Century Living”
Erik Jacobson, University of Massachusetts, Boston
“Students Using Sociolinguistics in the Adult ESL Classroom”
Jonathan Scott, CUNY, Borough of Manhattan Community College – English
“Democratic Affinities: A Class-struggle Approach to Multiculturalism”
Chair: Fred Gardaphe, Stony Brook – European Languages and Literature

3.7 Film - People Like Us: Social Class in America (excerpts) 308
Louis Alvarez and Andrew Kolker, filmmakers, Center for New American Media
Host: Maureen Shaiman, Stony Brook – English, graduate program

2:00 – 3:15
4.0 Plenary Session
Auditorium
“Middle Class? Working Class? What’s the Difference and Why Does It Matter”
Barbara Ehrenreich, writer
Michael Zweig, Stony Brook – Economics
Chair: Fred Gardaphe, Stony Brook – European Languages and Literature

3:30 – 5:00
Simultaneous Sessions

4.1 Organizing the U.S. Working Class in the Global Setting 302
Jamie Daniel, University of Illinois, Chicago – English
“ Service Labor and Globalization Theory: Visibility Problems”
Jerry Dominguez, Casa Mexico, Mexican American Workers Association, NYC
“ Organizing Immigrant Workers in New York City”
Jeffrey Keefe, Rutgers University – Labor Studies and Employment Relations
“ A Shift in Power Tactics from Strike to Political Pressure: The Case of CWA”
Immanuel Ness, CUNY Brooklyn College – Political Science
“Community Labor Alliances: A New Paradigm for Organizing – The Campaign to Organize Greengrocery Workers in New York City”
Chair: John Schmidt, Stony Brook (West) chapter chair, United University Professions (Local 2190 AFT – NYSUT, AFL-CIO)

4.2 The Capitalist Class 305
Leslie Gates, SUNY at Binghamton – Sociology
“ Reintegrating Class Analysis into Globalization: The Formation of Mexico’s Internationalist Elite and the Fate of Mexican Unions”
Paul J. Groncki, Financial Planner, NYC
“ Demographics of the Capitalist Class”
Doug Henwood, Editor, Left Business Observer
“ Davos and More: A Global Ruling Class (in formation)”
Chair: Michael Schwartz, Stony Brook – Sociology

4.3 Class and Youth 304
Gregory DeFreitas, Hofstra University – Economics
Niev Duffy, Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, NYC
“Young Workers, Economic Inequality, and Collective Action”
Vincent DiGirolamo, Princeton – History
“Newsboy Funerals: Towards an Emotional History of Working-class Youth”
Louis Kontos, Long Island University
“The Organizational Philosophy of Street Gangs on Long Island”
Chair: Sara Lipton, Stony Brook - History

4.4 Class and Health 306
Oliver Fein, MD, Cornell University Medical School – Clinical Medicine and Clinical Public Health, and
Martha Livingston, SUNY College at Old Westbury – Health and Society
“Social Class, the Economic Determinants of Health, and the Health Inequalities Debate”
Robb Burlage, Director, Health Justice Ministries, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
“New York’s Health Care Systems: A Class Act?”
Chair: Martha Livingston

4.5 Class and Education 304
Norman Fruchter and Kavitha Mediratta, New York University – Institute for Education and Social Policy
“Beyond Parent Involvement: An Organizing Paradigm”
Gordon Lafer, University of Oregon – Political Science
“Policy Charade: Training for Discipline in the Low-wage Labor Market”
Michelle Tokarczyk, Goucher College – English
“Promises to Keep: Higher Education and Working-Class Students”
Chair: Tracy Ann Henry, Stony Brook – Economics, graduate program

4.6 Pedagogy of Class - Teaching Labor and Working-Class History: a discussion 311
Kathy Mapes, SUNY at Geneseo – History
Karen Pastorello, Tompkins Cortland Community College (NY) - History
Randi Storch, SUNY at Cortland – History
Julia Walsh, Webster University – History, Politics, and Law
Chair: Karen Pastorello

4.7 Film 308
Fred Glass, filmmaker, California Federation of Teachers
Golden Lands, Working Hands (excerpts)
Danny Schechter, filmmaker, Globalvision, NYC
Class Counts
Host: Michael Zweig, Stony Brook – Economics

4.8 Watching the Media through the Lens of Class
Danny Schechter – Executive Editor, Mediachannel.org

7:30
Dinner
Lobby Atrium

Saturday June 8
9:00 – 10:15
5.0 Plenary Session
Auditorium
Class in a Global Economy
Katie Quan, UC Berkeley - Institute of Industrial Relations
William K. Tabb, CUNY Graduate Center – Political Science
Chair: Jacqueline Smith, Stony Brook - Sociology

10:30 – noon
Simultaneous Sessions

5.1 Issues in Class Mobility 302
Joe Berry, Coalition of Contingent Academic Labor (COCAL), Chicago
“ Class Lines, Class Power, and Class Consciousness within Higher Education: The Case of the New Majority Contingent Faculty”
Jonathan Boyarin, Attorney, NYC
“ Towards a Personal Ethnography of a Large Law Firm”
Fiona Devine, University of Manchester (UK) – Sociology
“ On the Self-maintaining Properties of the Class Structure: How the Middle Classes Reproduce Their Privileges and Power Across Generations”
Mary Kosut, New School University – Sociology, graduate program
“The Class Ceiling: Reflections on Class and the Academy from a Blue-collar Standpoint”
Chair: April Masten, Stony Brook - History

5.2 Issues in Class Alliances 303
Richard Greenwald, United States Merchant Marine Academy – History
“ Crossing Boundaries: Progressive Era Working-class Reformers in a Middle-class World”
Robert Alan Harris, William Paterson University – History
“How Temperance Didn’t Work: Terence V. Powderly’s Lonely Crusade, 1869-1893”
Fred Rose, Springfield, Massachusetts
“How Working- and Middle-class Cultures Shape Politics: Building Coalitions Across the Class Divide”
David Zonderman, North Carolina State University – History
“Working at Cross-class Alliances: The Labor Reform Movement in Post-Civil War Boston”
Chair: Gary Mar, Stony Brook - Philosophy

5.3 Class and Race 306
Peniel E. Joseph, University of Rhode Island – History
“African-American Class Struggles During the Civil Rights/Black Power Movements”
Jeff Lustig, California State University at Sacramento – Government
“Class Resumed: The Tangled Knot of Race and Class and What It Means for How Class Works in America”
Rachel Meyer, University of Michigan – Sociology, graduate program
“Strikes and Sit-ins: Class Struggle and the Making of Interracial Unionism”
James Lance Taylor, University of San Francisco – Politics
“Black Nationalism and the Class Functions of Race in American Politics”
Chair: John Williams, Stony Brook - History

5.4 Pedagogy of Class 304
David Van Arsdale and students, Tompkins Cortland Community College (NY) – Sociology
“The Sociology of Work: Community College Students Study Their Class and Labor Backgrounds, with Implications for the Future”
Chair: David Van Arsdale

5.5 Class and Class Identity 305
George Davis, Pennsylvania State University – Political Science
“ (Re)Producing Bourgeois Subjects: Foucault, Sexuality, and the Politics of Class Identity”
Thurston Domina, CUNY Graduate Center – Sociology, graduate program
“Class and the American Consensus: Predictors of Working-Class Identity, 1972 – 2000”
Kathryn Hegarty, Deakin University (Melbourne) – School of Literary and Communications Studies, graduate program
“The Classing of Ourselves: Mapping Working Class-ness in Identity through Fiction”
Gregory Mantsios, CUNY Queens College – Director, Queens College Labor Resource Center
“Class in America: Myths and Realities”
Chair: Michelle Fazio, Stony Brook – English, graduate program

5.6 Film -A Day’s Work: A Day’s Pay 308
Kathy Leichter, filmmaker, Mint Leaf Productions, New York City
Jonathan Skurnick, filmmaker, Mint Leaf Productions, New York City
Yvonne Shields, Workfare Media Initiative - media organizer
Host: Amy Sullivan, Stony Brook – Theater

2:00 – 3:15
Plenary Session
Auditorium
6.0 Class, Power, and Social Structure
Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News – columnist
May Chen, UNITE! – Vice President
Chair: Jose Feliciano, Stony Brook - Physics

3:30 – 5:00
Simultaneous Sessions

6.1 Class beyond the U.S. 305
Myagmartseren Chultem, York University, Toronto
“ Reproductive Decisions of Mongolian Women: Class and Public Policy”
Sydney Gluck, U.S.-China Society of Friends, NYC
“ The Nature of the Middle Class – Comparative Study of China and the U.S.A.”
Peter Ranis, CUNY Graduate Center – Political Science
“ Rebellion and Class: Argentine Society Confronts the Neo-Liberal Model”
Yingfeng Wu, SUNY at Stony Brook – Sociology, graduate program
“ Market Reform and the Changing Life Chances of the Working Class in China”
Chair: Frank Myers, Stony Brook – Political Science

6.2 Recent Strike Experiences 306
Steve Early, Communications Workers of America Region 1
“ CWA and the Verizon Strike”
Joel Ochoa, International Association of Machinists, California
“ The 1996 California Drywallers’ Strike”
Peter Olney, UC Berkeley – Institute for Labor and Employment
“ Resurrecting the Strike as Labor’s Primary Weapon”
Triana Silton, Service Employees International Union
“ Justice for Janitors in Los Angeles”
Rand Wilson, Service Employees International Union
“ The Teamsters and UPS”
Chair: Peter Olney

6.3 Issues of Class Mobility 302
David Byrne, University of Durham (UK) – Sociology and Social Policy
“ A Middle Class Created by Social-Democracy: Middle-class People from Working-Class Backgrounds in Post-Industrial Industrial Britain”
Barbara Jensen, University of Minnesota – Center for Labor and Working Class Studies
“ Across the Great Divide: Cultural and Psychological Dynamics from the Working Class to the Middle Class”
Sandra J. Jones, Brandeis University
“ Pass the Mustard: Contesting Class Relations in a Mixed-class Marriage”
Chair: Sarah Hall Sternglanz, Stony Brook – Women’s Studies

6.4 Class and the Politics of Reform 303
Jefferson Cowie, Cornell University – School of Industrial and Labor Relations
“ The New Deal That Never Happened: Full Employment and the Politics of Class in the 1970s”
Donna Harrison, York University, Toronto – Sociology, graduate program
“Double Speak: Canadian State ‘Restructuring’ and the Demise of the West Coast Commercial Salmon Fleet”
Wallace Katz, Dowling College - History and Humanities
“Class Discourse and the End of Reform”
Victor Wallis, Berklee College of Music – General Education
“The Environment as a Class Issue”
Chair: Rachel Kreier, Stony Brook – Economics, graduate program

6.5 Pedagogy of Class - Interrelations of Class, Gender, and Race in Educational Sites: Historical, Ethnographic, and Narrative Analyses 304
Marta Albert, SUNY at Albany – Reading
“Transformative Literate Practice in Working Women’s Lives”
John Calagione, CUNY – Center for Worker Education
“Locating the Unspeakable Term”
Jim Collins, SUNY at Albany - Anthropology
“The Reading Wars in situ: Lived Hegemonies of Class, Race, and Gender”
Mike Hill, SUNY at Albany – English
“Diversity in the Multiversity”
Chair: Jim Collins

6.6 Film – Stolen Childhoods: Child Labor in the Global Economy 308
Robin Romano, Filmmaker, Romano Productions, NYC
Host: Soiliou Namoro, Stony Brook – Economics, graduate program

7:30
Plenary Session
Auditorium
7.0 Class, Race, and the Struggle for Freedom in South Africa
Zwelinzima Vavi
General Secretary, Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU)

Sunday, June 9
9:30 – 11:00

8.1 Continuing to Build Working Class Studies311
A discussion among those interested
Chair: Michael Zweig, Stony Brook – Economics