From Serving to Sex Work: Fictions of Unproductive Labor

Undergraduate / Graduate

In this course, we will look at fictional representations of ways of life that don't fit neatly into accounts of productive labor (or work that is understood to create economic value) from the eighteenth century to the present. Moving across economic theory, poetry, drama, novels, and film, we will examine how depictions of so-called unproductive labor-from butlers and nurses to beggars and sex workers-challenge orthodox understandings of what it means to participate in the economy and contribute to society. Readings may include literary texts by Alexander Pope, William Wordsworth, Charlotte Brontë, George Bernard Shaw, John Osborne, Margaret Atwood, and Kazuo Ishiguro; films from The Full Monty to Nomadland; and writings by economists and sociologists from the eighteenth century to the present. (Fiction)