How do members of the American middle class represent themselves and recognize each other as belonging to a distinct social group? What distinguishes certain ways of behaving as "classy" while others seem merely "trashy"? This conference will examine the role that behavior, manners, and codes of conduct play in marking the boundaries of middle class experience in the contemporary United States. Scholars from a range of fields will explore these taken-for-granted habits, norms, and ideals--the public and the private, the acceptable and the intolerable, the proper and the scandalous. We will consider how these everyday acts of presentation and performance help to define, reinforce, and occasionally undermine the structuring principles of American middle class life.

Schedule of Events

Session One: 1.00 – 3.00 p.m.
Our Kind Of People: Private Lives, Public Selves, and the Performance Of Middle Class Identity

Moderator: Jennifer Mears, Department of History and MARIAL Center, Emory University

Karyn Lacy, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Emory University -“Identity Dilemmas: Middle Class Blacks’ Responses to Racial Discrimination in the Public Sphere.”

Christopher McCollum, Postdoctoral Fellow, MARIAL Center, Emory University - “Etiquette and Ambivalence: The Psychodynamics of
Self-Presentation in Middle Class Life.”

Katherine Frank, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, College of the Atlantic - “Boys’ Night Out: Class and Desire at the Strip Club.”

Session Two: 3.15 – 5.15 p.m.
A Few of Our Favorite Things: Private Lives, Public Selves, and the Symbols of Middle Class Identity

Moderator: Margaret T. McGehee, Graduate Institute for Liberal Arts, Emory University

Maggie Jackson, Journalist and Author, Associated Press National Workplace Correspondent, 1995-2001 - “The Pre-Decked Christmas Tree: Domesticity and the Outsourcing of Middle Class Home Life.”

Mary Ann Glynn, Professor of Organization and Management, Goizueta Business School, Emory University - “What Would Martha Do? Constructing a ‘Good’ Life with Martha Stewart’s ‘Good Things.’”

Carolyn Marvin, Professor, Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania - “What the Flag Means to Me: Patriotism and Intellectual Snobbery.”

Reception and Booksigning: 5.15 – 6.00 p.m.


Keynote Address: 6.00 p.m.
William Miller, Professor of Law, University of Michigan Law School
“Faking It.”

Keynote Speaker:

William Miller, Professor of Law,
University of Michigan Law School

Scheduled Panelists:

Katherine Frank, Assistant Professor of Anthropology, College of the Atlantic

Mary Ann Glynn, Associate Professor of Organization and Management, Goizueta Business School, Emory University

Maggie Jackson, National Workplace Correspondent, Associated Press

Karyn Lacy, Assistant Professor of Sociology, Emory University.

Carolyn Marvin, Professor, Annenberg School for Communications, University of Pennsylvania.

Christopher McCollum, Postdoctoral Fellow, MARIAL Center, Emory University