Promotional Information

Famed anthropologist Ortner tracks down representative classmates from her mostly Jewish Newark, NJ high school class of '58 in order to examine class culture and ethnicity in America today.

Table of Contents

List of Tables and Map ix
Acknowledgments xi
Letter to the Class of '58 xv
1. Introduction:
A Genealogy of the Present / The Class of '58 and the Question of Class / The Research / The Native Ethnographer / Project Journal 1: Getting Started 1
The Making of the Class of '58
2. Reading Class:
Families and Class / Behind Closed Doors / Hiding in Plain Sight / Project Journal 2: Florida 27
3. Drawing Boundaries:
To Melt or Not? / The Ethnic Story / The Class Story / Project Journal 3: Los Angeles 51
4. Dealing with Boundaries:
The Others / Overt Racism / Race and Ethnic Relations at Weequabic / Internalizing Limits / Survival Strategies / Project Journal 4: New Jersey 68
5. American High Schools:
Memories and Categories / Deconstructing High School / High School Types across Time and Space / Permutations of the Structure / Project Journal 5: New York 90
6. Weekquahic:
The Top of the Table: High-Capital Kids and Popularity / The Lower Half of the Table: Low-Capital Kids and Resistance / Identities I: The Wildness of the Tame / Identities II: The Tameness of the Wild / Project Journal 6: New Jersey 110
7. Tracks:
Weequabic qua School / College Prep? / Cultural Capital / College as a Cultural System / Gender Tracks / Project Journal 7: New Jersey 141
What the Class of '58 Made
8. Counterlives:
Earlier Causes / The Other Fifities / The Sixties / Project Journa 8: New Jersey 169
9. Money:
Success / Upward Mobility / The Success of Jewish Men / High -Capital Jewish Boys / Downward Mobility / Low-Capital Jewish Boys / Mobility, Agency, and History / Project Journal 9: Children of the Class of '58, New Jersey 187
10. Happiness:
Zero College / Success II: Happiness / Project Journal 10: Children of the Class of '58 (LA and Other Far-flung Places, Including New Jersey) 213
11. Liberation:
Women and Higher Education / Class of '58 Women and the Feminist Movement / Divorce / Careers / Succeeding in Nontraditional Careers / Project Journal 11: Endgame 238
12. Late Capitalism:
The Class of '58 and the Making of Late Capitalism / The Growth of the PMC / Race Again 262
Appendix 1. Finding People / Judy Epstein Rothbard 279
Appendix 2. In Memoriam 282
Appendix 3. Lost Classmates 283
Appendix 4. The Class of '58 Today 284
Notes 295
Works Cited 313
Index 331

About the Author

Sherry B. Ortner is Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at the University of California, Los Angeles. She is author of Life and Death on Mt. Everest: Sherpas and Himalayan Mountaineering, Making Gender: The Politics and Erotics of Culture, and High Religion: A Cultural and Political History of Sherpa Buddhism. She has received many awards, including a John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship.

Reviews

"For 30 years [Ortner] has studied gender and social and cultural theory, helping invent the field of feminist anthropology, winning a MacArthur 'genius award' and traveling to the Himalayas to produce major works on Nepal's Sherpa culture and Mount Everest. And now, after much journeying, Ms. Ortner ... has returned professionally to the place she once dreamed of leaving to explore the world: her alma mater, Weequahic High School."--Felicia Lee, New York Times "New Jersey Dreaming is consistently cogent, thought-provoking and just plain fun to read."--Michael Chibnik, American Ethnologist "New Jersey Dreaming shatters myths about the history, culture, and social relations of our society by placing ethnicity in a class context, by historicizing Jewish upward mobility, and by presenting a new framework for understanding identity and power that is firmly rooted in the practices of everyday life."--George Lipsitz, author of American Studies in a Moment of Danger "New Jersey Dreaming makes one of the most important sociological arguments in recent years on the dynamics of class in post-World War II American society, and it presents innovations and important strategies for anthropologists conducting research in and on American society."--George Marcus, author of Ethnography through Thick and Thin "Ortner is an entertaining writer with a strong personal voice."--Elaine Showalter, American Prospect "[Ortner] convincingly argues that her classmates' success is not only a function of their work ethic and the level of acceptance of the dominant culture's value system, but also a function of how well they are able to benefit from their other group memberships. Recommended."--G. Rabrenovic, Choice "New Jersey Dreaming is consistently cogent, thought provoking and just plain fun to read. Because of the accessibility of the subject matter and the lucid descriptions of anthropological method and theory, I highly recommend this book for classroom use."--Michael Chibnik, American Ethnologist "Written by one of the most proficient anthropologists today, New Jersey Dreaming is an exemplar of the possibilities and limitations of multi-sited ethnography. It also is a fine contribution to the ethnography of schools and of class and socio-economic mobility in America... Ortner's deft touch with both theory and method makes for a very readable and accessible book."--Marilyn Silverman, Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology "Ortner skillfully integrates an analysis of class expectations and social mobility with the fascinating reminiscences of her classmates and her own thoughts about her 'fieldwork.' She successfully moves from the seemingly narrow focus of her own high school to reveal important insights about the impact of high school on the rest of our lives and the nature of class, gender, and race in postwar America."--Seminary Co-op "This is a lovely and interesting book... [I]t offers valuable insights into class, race, ethnicity, gender, education, and friendship."--Lynne Pettinger, Ethnic and Racial Studies "[P]rovocative..."--Paul H. Mattingly, Journal of American History "Ortner's book is a valuable contribution to the study of the role of class in contemporary America. New Jersey Dreaming is a tour de force exposition of the premise that class is not some natural object lying around in the world but is culturally or discursively constructed."--J. Brian Sheehan, American Studies International "Intersubjectivity was clearly a tool of research but Ortner's presence in the work is also felt in the excerpts from her field notes that appear throughout the book. They are honest, revealing, and engaging. It is an enlivening and educative practice. The final chapter, 'Late Capitalism' is cohesively powerful..."--Gretchen Poiner, The Australian Journal of Anthropology "[A] fascinating study..."--Nicole Neatby, Labour/Le Travail "New Jersey Dreaming is a distinctive and theoretically rigorous cultural analysis of class mobility that challenges the disciplinary apartheid in which anthropologists have tended to concede the study of U.S. social mobility and society to sociologists and historians. It offers a theoretical and methodological map of this terrain and will be a standout among books devoted to social change and class inequality."--France Winddance Twine, Current Anthropology "[E]xceptionally interesting ... [A]n important and genuinely innovative book... New Jersey Dreaming is a real achievement in the study of American society. It offers a complex analysis that is a wonderful model for the study of class and culture, and it is a truly pioneering work in the ethnographic study of these critical features of American society."--Riv-Ellen Prell, Jewish Quarterly Review "For thirty years [Ortner] has studied gender and social and cultural theory, helping invent the field of feminist anthropology... [In New Jersey Dreaming] Ms. Ortner vividly captured those days when girls took home economics and boys took shop..."--Felicia Lee, New York Times "This is a lovely and interesting book... [I]t offers valuable insights into class, race, ethnicity, gender, education, and friendship."--Lynne Pettinger, Ethnic and Racial Studies "Ortner's book is a valuable contribution to the study of the role of class in contemporary America. New Jersey Dreaming is a tour de force exposition of the premise that class is not some natural object lying around in the world but is culturally or discursively constructed."--J. Brian Sheehan, American Studies International "[A] fascinating study..."--Nicole Neatby, Labour/Le Travail "New Jersey Dreaming is a distinctive and theoretically rigorous cultural analysis of class mobility that challenges the disciplinary apartheid in which anthropologists have tended to concede the study of U.S. social mobility and society to sociologists and historians. It offers a theoretical and methodological map of this terrain and will be a standout among books devoted to social change and class inequality."--France Winddance Twine, Current Anthropology "Writing with masterful clarity, Ortner 'brings class back in' to social analysis without slighting identity politics or post-structuralist scholarship (265). She vividly shows how class change occurs on the ground, through the aspirations of individuals acting as class agents... Throughout, Ortner's narrative is engaging and deceptively simple, to be savoured less for its findings (which are not unexpected) than for its judicious balancing of individual, cultural and structural factors in the making of historical change."--Landon R. Y. Storrs, Social History "Ortner's book is what anthropology is at its best: an exploration of everyday life (whether old or new) and an analysis that uncovers life's layers of subjective meanings and relations between them. Even more exciting, and perhaps more challenging for Ortner, is that New Jersey Dreaming is a book about an anthropologist's own 'culture,' one's own 'nativity,' so to speak." --Linwood H. Cousins, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute