Maggie and all, At Columbia University, from the 1930's until his death in the late 1950's (1958?), the Marxist sociologist and anthropologist Bernard J. Stern -- who gave the journal "Science and Society" its name -- taught graduate courses in Social Class. Perhaps also at the New School, where he also taught.. He always carefully and explicitly pointed out that _within_ different social classes, there were different _strata_. He spent a great deal of time examining the differences in their thinking, etc. In some respects, pomo may have been simply "thinking things up rather than looking them up" -- the absence of training in the history of ideas. Some of his work was later collected in a volume titled _Historical Sociology_ (I think, the book is at home). Stern had all his books banned from State Dept. Libraries overseas by McCarthy, etc. Stern was also a supporter of womens' rights, and wrote a piece on the position of women in historical society for the Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences. In that piece, he clearly points out many gender and class differences, etc. Larry Shute Thanks for your message at 06:00 PM 9/17/97 -0700, [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your message was: >In a message dated 97-09-17 12:12:02 EDT, you write: > >>So the task for non-rigid Marxians and other socialists is to >>take the insights of postmodernism (about language, about the construction >>of subjects) and move beyond them - to devise a non-vulgar foundationalism, >>and to rethink class as the fully complex thing it is. Post-Sokal >>exuberance is no excuse to think the old verities have now been >>self-evidently restored. >> >>Doug > >I've often thought that pomo has significant insights--the problem being >finding the insights amongst the dreck. One thing pomo has done, well in a >few cases, and poorly in many, is to begin describing the contradictions >within classes and groupings, rather than seeing classes as the proverbial >black boxes--once tagged, acting exactly the same all the time. Mao's >leadership genius in China (NOT to suggest that Mao was a pomo) was his >interweaving of Marxism with Chinese culture and the existing class structure >with all its contradictions--not the layering of theoretically pre-defined >classes on existing cultural structures. In looking at the United States (as >the place I have the most knowledge of), I think the value of some pomo >research has been to gather raw data on inner-class divisions which can be >used to strengthen class analysis so that it actually reflects the culture of >the United States. To grow functioning resistance movements, and combat the >deep divisions within communities, it is really necessary to understand how >class, race, ethnicity, and gender interact. >maggie coleman [EMAIL PROTECTED] >
