First Year Seminar
Trinity College
Fall 2003
Assistant Professor Beth Notar
Anthropology Department
Office: McCook 305A
tel. 297-5234
email: Beth.Notar@trincoll.edu
Course description
Trash is everywhere – under our sinks, in our streets, in overflowing landfills on the outskirts of cities. Yet we do not often think carefully about the cultural meanings of trash, let alone its political economy. How can we think about trash as “matter out of place”? What does our trash tell us about ourselves? What do our ideas about trash tell us about our relationships with others? This course focuses on trash as object and idea to investigate issues of consumption, identity, power and inequality. We will investigate trash vocabularies, trajectories and controversies: why do we “talk trash” or say that someone is “trashy”? who takes out the trash? why have some states and countries begun importing trash? who decides where toxic and radioactive waste is disposed of? Readings will include social histories, news stories and ethnographies. The class will conduct a research project on trash in the city of Hartford.
Required readings
A course reader of articles will be available for purchase. The following required text has been ordered through the college bookstore in the basement of Mather Hall:
Strasser, Susan, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999.
Course requirements:
Course schedule
8/29 Introduction
van Dam, “The Future of Waste”
Film short: Ilha das Flores
9/1 What are we talking about?
Douglas, 1989 [1966], 1-6, 35-36.
Gourlay, “In Search of Waste,” “Waste makers and their wastes,” 1992, 19-76.
Parsons, “Waste Materials,” 1906, 12-39.
Assignment for this class: writing on readings
Assignment for class: your team will draw one of the following words -- debris, garbage, junk, litter, refuse, rubbish, trash, or waste -- and look it up in the Oxford English Dictionary, and the Dictionary of American Slang. Photocopy or print out the definitions. Compare the definitions from the three different sources. Each member of your group should type a 1-2 page reflection on the definitions from all three sources: what does each source offer that is different from the others? What most interested you from the definitions? What most surprised you? Bring the photocopies or print outs of the definitions to class and be prepared to share your findings.
9/8 What is in the Trash?
Rathje and Murphy, Rubbish!, 1992, 3-29.
Hoffman, “The Social Context of Trash Disposal ...”1974: 35-50.
Guest lecturer: Prof. Martha Risser
Assignment: excavation of your trash can
9/15 Who Takes Out the Trash?
Durkheim?
Spradley, excerpts from Participant Observation, The Ethnographic Interview
Douglas, “Internal Lines,”1989 [1966], 129-139.
Gold, “Janitors ...,” 1952, 486-493.
9/22 [Observation and Interviews with janitors on campus]
9/29 Who Collects the Garbage?
Prashad, “Mehtars,” 2000, 1-24.
Stanfield, In Memphis, 1968.
Clip from Eyes on the Prize?
10/6 Trinity Days [Interviews with city garbage collectors]
10/13 Where does the Garbage Go?
Gourlay, “Prologue,” 1992, 1-15.
Stebbins, “Garbage Imperialism”?
Flynn, “The Plastic Harvest,” 2000:16-23
Nieves, “A Land’s ‘Caretakers’” 2000.
Maher, “Environmental ...,”1998: 357-367.
10/20 Trash-to-Cash
Crooks, Dirty Business, 1983, 1-38.
Williams,“Recovering Energy,” 1991, 239-266.
Curlee, et al, Waste-to-Energy,1994, 1-36.
[Visit Hartford’s Waste-to-Energy plant]
10/27 After-Trash
Lo, “Garbage Gleaner.”
Film: The Gleaners and I
11/3 Looking Back
Strasser, Waste and Want, 1999, Intro, chap. 3 up to 153, chap. 4.
[How did Trinity used to dispose of its trash? Where did it go in the city of Hartford? Use archival materials?]
11/10 War and Trash
Strasser, 153-159, chap. 6
Schofield, “‘Rubble Women,’” 1994: 129-147.
[find out how U.S. army currently disposes of its trash while in field]
11/17
Berube, “Sunset Trailer Park,”1997, 15-39.
Hartigan, “Name Calling,”1997, 41-56.
Dunbar, “Bloody Footprints,” 1997, 73-86.
11/24 Lynn? Bodies and Trash
12/1 Talkin’ Trash
Miller, “The Use of Yap” (ask for permission)
poem, “Talkin’ Trash”
Assignment choice: a) Do you ever hear or use “trash talk” on or off the sports field? What constitutes trash talk? [more specific q re: Miller’s paper]
b) Listen to how people use the words “trash,” “waste” and “garbage” in daily speech. If you hear someone use an expression, jot it down in a notebook. What was the context of the comment? What comments, if any, preceeded and followed the comment?
Bibliography
Berube, Allan with Florence Berube, “Sunset Trailer Park,” in Annalee Newitz and Matt Wray, eds., White Trash: Race and Class in America, New York: Routledge, 1997, 15-39.
Crooks, Harold, Dirty Business: The Inside Story of the New Garbage Agglomerates, Toronto: James Lorimer, 1983.
Curlee, T. Randall, Susan M. Schexnayder, David P. Vogt, Amy K. Wolfe, Michael P. Kelsay, and David L. Feldman, Waste-to-Energy in the United States: A Social and Economic Assessment, Westport, CT: Quorum Books, 1994.
Douglas, Mary, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo, London: Ark, 1989 [1966].
Dunbar, Roxanne A., in Annalee Newitz and Matt Wray, eds., “Bloody Footprints,” White Trash: Race and Class in America 1997, 73-86.
Flynn, Jenny, “The Plastic Harvest,” Orion, Vol.19, no.4 (Autumn 2000): 16-23.
Gold, Ray, “Janitors Versus Tenants,” American Journal of Sociology, vol.57, no.5 (Mar.1952): 486-493.
Gourlay, K.A., World of Waste: Dilemmas of Industrial Development, London: Zed Books, 1992.
Hartigan, John, Jr., “Name Calling,”in Annalee Newitz and Matt Wray, eds., White Trash: Race and Class in America, New York: Routledge, 1997, 41-56.
Hoffman, Michael A., “The Social Context of Trash Disposal in an Early Dynastic Egyptian Town,”American Antiquity, vol.39, no.1 (Jan. 1974): 35-50.
Lo Hua-sheng, “Garbage Gleaner,” trans. by Vivian Hsu and Juliani Sidharta, in Vivian Ling Hsu, ed., Born of the Same Roots: Stories of Modern Chinese Women, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981, 23-43.
Maher, Timothy, “Environmental Oppression: Who Is Targeted for Toxic Exposure?,” Journal of Black Studies, vol.23, no.3 (Jan. 1998): 357-367.
Nieves, Evelyn, “A Land’s ‘Caretakers’ Oppose Nuclear-Dump Plan,” The New York Times, “National Report,” Sun., April 23, 2000: 12.
Parsons, H. de B., The Disposal of Municipal Refuse, New York: John Wiley & Sons 1906.
Prashad, Vijay, Untouchable Freedom, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000.
Rathje, William and Cullen Murphy, Rubbish!: The Archaeology of Garbage, 1992.
Schofield, Mary Anne, “‘Rubble Women’: the Clean-Up Crew of World War II,” American Journal of Semiotics, Special Issue: Refiguring Debris, vol.11, nos.1-2, 1994: 129-147.
Stanfield, J. Edwin, In Memphis: More than a Garbage Strike, Atlanta: Southern Regional Council, 1968.
Strasser, Susan, Waste and Want: A Social History of Trash, New York: Metropolitan Books, 1999.
van Dam, Andre, “The Future of Waste,” The Journal of Modern African Studies, vol.14, no.2 (June 1976): 340-344.
Williams, Susan, Trash to Cash: New Business Opportunities in the Post-Consumer Waste Stream, Washington, D.C.: Investor Responsibility Research Center, 1991.
Filmography
Ilha das Flores
Varda, Agnes, dir. The Gleaners and I