Posting Assignment #7 (due Sunday 11/14, 11:59 P.M.): Who are we? How'd we get that way?

Early in our work, we listened to Gang of Four ask 'Why theory?'  They sing 'We've all got opinions.  Where do they come from?'  This project askes us to get to know a partner—really know them.  And explore where opinions come from. And write up what you found—respectfully, engagingly—so we can all see how our personal and public histories form our 'structures of feeling'—in this case as related to work, labor and what we called 'the material conditions of existence.'

Robin does his homework: Mom put this picture in my babybook on the page for 'Baby's Fourth Birthday.' Apparently I didn't have a good time because I was worried that if the other kids' balloons broke they would not have a good time.  From the left: Guy Huntley, Phillip Moreland, Johnny Peterson, and me (what was Mom thinking with the flowered matching outfit?).  Guy became an insurance salesman. Phillip (the goofy looking one) became a Catholic priest.  Johnny's father was a coal miner, and Johnny followed him into the mines.  He died there in an explosion (Consolidated Coal) at 52. And me—well, you know me.  Somehow—even at four—we all knew that Johnny was a 'working class kid' (though we didn't have the words for it).  The other three of us were supposed to do better in school (and we did).  But I always thought Johnny was smarter than the other two.  He knew how to wire up the electric trains.  He could track animals.  He talked better.  He was a lot more fun.  Maybe biology matters (I still worry about whether the other kids will have a good time). But class really matters.

Introduce your new friend.  Tell us how your explorations went. Got images?  Put 'em in. Find things that mattered (songs, movies, Boy Scouts, school, 4H)? Talk about it.  Is it important who you (the writer are, too?  Talk about that.  Need models?  Well, that's tough, because all of us are so different and so are our stories—but you might look at how Studs Terkel selects details, words and ideas and arranges them into what looks like just pure facts.  

Does this one need 'theory'?  Not so much, but it really does need to do our kind of work: to show us how big historical 'structures of feeling' play out in our very intimate lives.