Abstract
This essay recovers the communication pedagogy that the Young Men's Christian Association (YMCA) developed as part of their outreach to immigrant men in the industries in the early-20th-century U.S.A. It brings into focus how the YMCA's teaching techniques negotiated the relation between labor and labor power by configuring sound, speech, and class subjectivity in a way that put in motion a form of productive affect. From this material history, the essay prompts reflection on the ways that sound continues to configure ever-shifting modes of productivity and exploitation, inviting scholars to critically consider the role of communication pedagogy in the evolving contexts of capitalism.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 339-354 |
| Number of pages | 16 |
| Journal | Review of Communication |
| Volume | 20 |
| Issue number | 4 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - 2020 |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2021 National Communication Association.
Keywords
- Americanization
- capitalism
- class
- ethnicity
- speech pedagogy