In light of
the teaching project my group will be doing on the concept of “everyday life”,
my final paper will be an attempt to understand the significance of routine in
the practice and study of culture. The
lens for this paper will be the concept of traffic and its ties to daily life
in terms of work, leisure, and consumption.
While I have yet to conduct any in-depth research into the previous work
on traffic, there appears to be little that considers this phenomenon from the
perspective of cultural studies.
Margaret Morse’s article, “An Ontology of
Everyday Distraction: The Freeway, the Mall, and Television,” acts as my
starting point for this venture, as she considers the automobile and freeway
driving a significant “cultural form.” Further,
Morse quotes urban studies scholar David Brodsly, who, in discussing the Los
Angeles freeway, argues that “the sustaining dream of most Southern
Californians is to not live in, or even near, a city… in short, they’re looking
for a comfortable small-town atmosphere in commuting distance of a big
city.” I want to investigate traffic and
commuting as a cultural object – especially to think about whether these
phenomena are cultural in nature, and why so much of the modern workforce,
particularly in Los Angeles, buys into the commute.
Currently, I have three main areas that I
would like to consider: traffic reporting, in terms of which areas are reported
and how these reports are delivered; the act of commuting, in terms of its
linkage to capitalist systems of the workday (i.e. rush hour); and the culture
of the everyday more broadly, why the mundaneness of traffic might be more
meaningful than we think.
Works Cited
Morse, Margaret. “An
Ontology of Everyday Distraction: The Freeway, the Mall, and Television.” In Logics
of Television, Indiana UP, 1990.
Brodsly, David. LA Freeway: An Appreciative Essay. UC Press, 1981.
Sandywell, Barry. “The
Myth of Everyday Life: Toward a Heterology of the Ordinary.” Cultural
Studies 18: 2-3, 160-180.
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