"Necessary Compromises: A Defense of Sympathetic Readings and Progressive Potential in Oliver Twist"
The field of literary study is perceived by some to be disproportionately represented by negative or critical analysis of canonical literature on the grounds that it has significant flaws when judged by today’s standards. Though such criticism is necessary and important, this article reengages the progressive potential, that is to say the lessons of the text that offer hope for positive social change, in Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Slavoj Žižek’s theorization of violence is deployed as a method of engaging Oliver Twist with an eye toward systemic (i.e., objective) violence, and this focus is then leveraged to analyze the progressive elements of the novel more broadly, emphasizing how the minor characters, double-speak, and capitalistic language are all highly constructive in unpacking the complex social relations and progressive message that underlies the text’s seemingly bourgeois façade. Ultimately, this close reading serves as a larger call to action that champions optimistic and sympathetic readings of popular texts in order to situate literary studies more generally as a force for social improvement in society.
"Worker Health and Well-being in the Gig Economy: A Proposed Framework and Research Agenda"
Despite widespread interest in the gig economy, academic research on the topic has lagged behind. This book chapter applies organizational theory and research to compose a working model for understanding participation in the gig economy and how gig work may impact worker health and well-being. Drawing from past research this chapter defines the gig economy in all its diversity and advances a framework for understanding why individuals enter into the gig economy. Next, we discuss how various characteristics of the gig economy and gig workers can be understood as both demands and resources that influence how gig work is likely to be experienced by the individual. To understand how these characteristics are likely to influence worker health and well-being, we draw from past research on alternative work arrangements and entrepreneurship, as well as the limited extant research on the gig economy. Finally, a research agenda is proposed to spur much needed research on the gig economy and its workers.
“Rogue Bodies: Disabled Antiheroes and the Pop-Culture Saga in Vikings”
This paper argues that the Emmy-winning series Vikings forces viewers to rethink assumptions about and attitudes towards disabled characters, forwarding a postmodern critique of disability representation that requires a nuanced understanding of the antihero in popular culture. Currently, little research has explored the role of disabled and female antiheroes, but instead focuses on white, male, heterosexual protagonists. Conversely, we focus on the ways disability is represented as socially constructed within Vikings, as well as the ways infertility is disabling in the series. Vikings casts select disabled characters in positions of power while also detailing the inextricable links between gender, sexuality, and disability.
“Modern Company, Postmodern Crisis: Representing Moral Ambiguity and Class Warfare in Peaky Blinders”
In "Modern Company, Postmodern Crisis," I argue that the BBC series Peaky Blinders effectively articulates a contemporary trend in popular culture that privileges morally ambiguous characters in narratives of ambition. In the self-professed desire to achieve "legitimacy" for the family business, patriarch Tommy Shelby engages in a plethora of morally ambiguous, if not downright immoral, behavior under the guise of striving to be an upstanding citizen. The crisis of social mobility that plagues the Shelby clan constitutes a major achievement in popular culture for bridging the gap between the struggles of early-twentieth century citizens belonging to the lower class and the difficulties experienced by a twenty-first century audience who appears to identify with these struggles. Through strategic stylistic choices and thematic representation, Steven Knight manages to depict the struggles of a working class family attempting to build a "modern company" while never seemingly able to escape the postmodern crisis of indeterminacy and destabilized notions of morality, national identity, and subjectivity.
“Calling Out the Bullshit: Neoliberalism in The Big Short”
After realizing the housing market is certainly in a bubble, Mark Baum (played by Steve Carell) claims that "it's time to call bullshit...on every fucking thing." This, in a sense, is the major thesis of the movie. A creative attempt to explain the housing market crash which preempted the Great Recession of 2008, The Big Short uses A-list actors, dark humor, and various stylistic choices such as periodically breaking the fourth wall to communicate a very simple message: the US economy operates on a logic of bullshit and it needs to be called out. My paper engages with the inherent paradox of forwarding a critique of neoliberalism in a Hollywood blockbuster, which many people would agree is severely implicated in many of the ills of neoliberalism. Ultimately, I argue that the necessity to call out bullshit when we see it supersedes the desire for a morally pure messenger of such criticisms, and therefore that popular culture films maintain a very important position for social critique, even while they are often implicated in and supported by the very structures they are critiquing.
“Teaching Women’s Rights and the Imperialist Agenda”
This piece gives a brief introduction to myself as a teacher and a feminist. It describes my experience teaching the topic of war in a 300-level literature course and then elaborating on the ways in which imperialism can misappropriate feminist causes in an attempt to support imperialist pursuits. After forwarding this initial argument, I provide a series of example texts (readings, video, images, comics, etc.) that could be used in teaching feminist issues in the context of a class on war and/or imperialism. Each text is given a brief description of what it is as well as suggestions for how it may be employed within a particular lesson as well as in a larger unit or course plan.
The field of literary study is perceived by some to be disproportionately represented by negative or critical analysis of canonical literature on the grounds that it has significant flaws when judged by today’s standards. Though such criticism is necessary and important, this article reengages the progressive potential, that is to say the lessons of the text that offer hope for positive social change, in Dickens’ Oliver Twist. Slavoj Žižek’s theorization of violence is deployed as a method of engaging Oliver Twist with an eye toward systemic (i.e., objective) violence, and this focus is then leveraged to analyze the progressive elements of the novel more broadly, emphasizing how the minor characters, double-speak, and capitalistic language are all highly constructive in unpacking the complex social relations and progressive message that underlies the text’s seemingly bourgeois façade. Ultimately, this close reading serves as a larger call to action that champions optimistic and sympathetic readings of popular texts in order to situate literary studies more generally as a force for social improvement in society.
- Published in Dickens Studies Annual: Essays in Victorian Fiction, Volume 52, No. 2 (2021)
"Worker Health and Well-being in the Gig Economy: A Proposed Framework and Research Agenda"
Despite widespread interest in the gig economy, academic research on the topic has lagged behind. This book chapter applies organizational theory and research to compose a working model for understanding participation in the gig economy and how gig work may impact worker health and well-being. Drawing from past research this chapter defines the gig economy in all its diversity and advances a framework for understanding why individuals enter into the gig economy. Next, we discuss how various characteristics of the gig economy and gig workers can be understood as both demands and resources that influence how gig work is likely to be experienced by the individual. To understand how these characteristics are likely to influence worker health and well-being, we draw from past research on alternative work arrangements and entrepreneurship, as well as the limited extant research on the gig economy. Finally, a research agenda is proposed to spur much needed research on the gig economy and its workers.
- Published in Entrepreneurial and Small Business Stressors, Experienced Stress, and Well-Being (2020)
“Rogue Bodies: Disabled Antiheroes and the Pop-Culture Saga in Vikings”
This paper argues that the Emmy-winning series Vikings forces viewers to rethink assumptions about and attitudes towards disabled characters, forwarding a postmodern critique of disability representation that requires a nuanced understanding of the antihero in popular culture. Currently, little research has explored the role of disabled and female antiheroes, but instead focuses on white, male, heterosexual protagonists. Conversely, we focus on the ways disability is represented as socially constructed within Vikings, as well as the ways infertility is disabling in the series. Vikings casts select disabled characters in positions of power while also detailing the inextricable links between gender, sexuality, and disability.
- Published in The Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 53, Issue 1 (2020)
“Modern Company, Postmodern Crisis: Representing Moral Ambiguity and Class Warfare in Peaky Blinders”
In "Modern Company, Postmodern Crisis," I argue that the BBC series Peaky Blinders effectively articulates a contemporary trend in popular culture that privileges morally ambiguous characters in narratives of ambition. In the self-professed desire to achieve "legitimacy" for the family business, patriarch Tommy Shelby engages in a plethora of morally ambiguous, if not downright immoral, behavior under the guise of striving to be an upstanding citizen. The crisis of social mobility that plagues the Shelby clan constitutes a major achievement in popular culture for bridging the gap between the struggles of early-twentieth century citizens belonging to the lower class and the difficulties experienced by a twenty-first century audience who appears to identify with these struggles. Through strategic stylistic choices and thematic representation, Steven Knight manages to depict the struggles of a working class family attempting to build a "modern company" while never seemingly able to escape the postmodern crisis of indeterminacy and destabilized notions of morality, national identity, and subjectivity.
- Published in Studies in Popular Culture, Volume 2, Issue 41 (2019)
“Calling Out the Bullshit: Neoliberalism in The Big Short”
After realizing the housing market is certainly in a bubble, Mark Baum (played by Steve Carell) claims that "it's time to call bullshit...on every fucking thing." This, in a sense, is the major thesis of the movie. A creative attempt to explain the housing market crash which preempted the Great Recession of 2008, The Big Short uses A-list actors, dark humor, and various stylistic choices such as periodically breaking the fourth wall to communicate a very simple message: the US economy operates on a logic of bullshit and it needs to be called out. My paper engages with the inherent paradox of forwarding a critique of neoliberalism in a Hollywood blockbuster, which many people would agree is severely implicated in many of the ills of neoliberalism. Ultimately, I argue that the necessity to call out bullshit when we see it supersedes the desire for a morally pure messenger of such criticisms, and therefore that popular culture films maintain a very important position for social critique, even while they are often implicated in and supported by the very structures they are critiquing.
- Published in The Journal of Popular Culture, Volume 51, Issue 2 (2018)
“Teaching Women’s Rights and the Imperialist Agenda”
This piece gives a brief introduction to myself as a teacher and a feminist. It describes my experience teaching the topic of war in a 300-level literature course and then elaborating on the ways in which imperialism can misappropriate feminist causes in an attempt to support imperialist pursuits. After forwarding this initial argument, I provide a series of example texts (readings, video, images, comics, etc.) that could be used in teaching feminist issues in the context of a class on war and/or imperialism. Each text is given a brief description of what it is as well as suggestions for how it may be employed within a particular lesson as well as in a larger unit or course plan.
- Published in Feminist Teacher, Volume 24, Issue 3 (2014)