Semester:
Offered:
Professor, Courtney Miller
Monday & Wednesday 10:30-11:45am
Domestic work, according to labor activist Ai-jen Poo, is “the work that makes all other work possible,” yet the people who clean, cook, and care are so often invisible and undervalued. Because domestic labor takes place within the home rather than the factory or other industrial sites of labor, what are the consequences of the erasure of boundaries between home and work, for both the employer and the employee? To what extent do domestic workers possess agency when their very occupation is to serve their employer? In addition to physical and mental labor required, what forms of emotional labor are also expected? What are the individual and societal ramifications of this labor force being largely unregulated, underpaid, and unappreciated? This course considers the complex forces of classism, racism, and sexism that have contributed to the subjugation of domestic workers and the labor they perform. In the first unit, students will closely read the popular British television series Downton Abbey, Zora Neale Hurston’s short story “Sweat,” and Maya Angelou’s biographical fiction “What’s Your Name, Girl?” to consider how the text illustrates servants possessing or lacking agency. In unit two, students will use sociologist Arlie Hochschild’s theory of emotional labor as a lens through which to examine Alfonso Cuarón’s film Roma, which features the perspective of an indigenous housekeeper and the blurry boundaries between work and family. In the final unit, students will focus on a text of their choosing, situating their work alongside the scholarly work of others. By thinking about how domestic labor is imagined in literature, television, and film, students will investigate the dynamics of privilege and power, exploitation and identity, and the care economy.