Bodies, Labor, and Politics

Undergraduate

Work is never “just work.” It is a deeply political phenomenon, moralized and regulated by states and societies alike. For those occupations that feature the physical body – such as professional athletes, fashion models, or sex workers – these politics are especially heightened. This course asks how labor politics and power operate through at the most intimate level: the body. When can we consider a job to be truly “embodied” —and with what consequences? How do these professions complicate the very idea of what constitutes “work”? Why are certain forms of embodied labor considered valuable by the state, and others cast as disposable or dangerous? We think critically about concepts such as bodily autonomy, public health, and beauty, and ask how these can (or should) factor into laws that affect the workplace. Drawing on feminist political theory and labor studies, we examine more closely the politics of different kinds of embodied work. Across these cases, we examine the deeper ethical questions and political stakes underlying their regulation. As a Writing in the Discipline course, we also develop practical approaches to writing and demystify the process of producing evidence-driven academic arguments. WR , SO TTh 2:35pm-3:50pm