How to Cook Cabbage
Navigating linguistic displacement, class and the classroom, how culture creates taste, and more
November 10, 2022
In this week’s issue of Public Seminar: the role of migrant workers in the U.S. economy, when not to enter the priesthood, what’s going to happen to affirmative action, and much more.
Classrooms Reconsidered
If the United States is preparing to truly rethink the economics of higher education, observes Tim Marshall, policymakers must prioritize equity of access and the avoidance of crippling debt, and make financing education as simple as possible. “The attempts at salary-based repayment schemes in the United States, for example, are so complicated that some of the experts polled by the New York Times could not figure out how to fill in the forms.” (November 7, 2022)
“I explained to a priest advisor at the school about these feelings that I was having, and that sometimes I had acted on these feelings. And he said, ‘You know, that can happen at your age. We will send you to a psychologist who will interview you and make some judgments.’” John D’Emilio chats to Claire Potter about his Jesuit education and the moment he realized that he should not become a priest. (November 8, 2022)
In the latest episode of the Past Present podcast, Nicole Hemmer, Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, and Neil J. Young discuss affirmative action, the progressive college admissions policy threatened by a conservative Supreme Court. (November 8, 2022)
Help share Public Seminar’s accessible intellectual commons by subscribing for free today.
Migrations
Perhaps a literary approach can help us grapple with the linguistic displacement of many migration stories, suggests Ken Hu. “Metaphors can teach us the fluidity necessary to navigate multiple discourse communities. When I want my cabbage lightly sautéed with garlic or my 高麗菜涼拌 (cabbage coleslaw’d), I’m not violating the rules of American or Taiwanese authenticity. Instead, I’m allowing my identities to overlap, acknowledging that the semantic edges may not be coherent.” (November 9, 2022)
“Contrary to what the Republicans would have us believe, foreign-born workers, nearly half of whom are Spanish-speaking, participate in the workforce at a higher rate than their native-born counterparts.” Steve Max unpacks the vital role migrant workers play in the U.S. economy. (November 9, 2022)
On Monday, November 14, from 6 to 8 p.m., Assistant Professor of History at Georgetown University Mike Amezcua will present a lecture at The New School on his new book, Making Mexican Chicago: From Postwar Settlement to the Age of Gentrification (University of Chicago Press, 2022.) Register to attend the event here.
The Mystery of Taste
“It seems obvious that if you can replicate the lifestyle choices of people above you, you could be understood as being them. The issue is that there are signaling costs. For example, you can get a loan and buy a Ferrari, but the other parts of your lifestyle will not match it. It sticks out like a sore thumb, and the people above will not believe that just because you have a Ferrari, you are one of them. The whole idea of cultural capital is knowing what objects to buy, how to arrange them, how to behave—all of these things go together.” W. David Marx joins Alla Anatsko for a conversation about his new book, Status and Culture: How Our Desire for Social Rank Creates Taste, Identity, Art, Fashion, and Constant Change (Viking, 2022), and the ecosystem of popularity. (November 9, 2022)
Read an excerpt from Status and Culture, courtesy of W. David Marx and Viking. “Pursuit of originality is correlated to top and bottom positions in a hierarchy. Most people don’t want extreme uniqueness.” (November 9, 2022)