The Bohemian Ethos: Questioning Work and Making a Scene on the Lower East Side (Routledge Advances in Sociology)

The iconoclastic ingenuity of bohemians, from Gerard de Nerval to Allen Ginsberg, continually captivates the popular imagination; the worlds of fashion, advertising, and even real estate all capitalize on the alternative appeal of bohemian style. Persistently overlooked, however, is bohemians' distinctive relationship to work. In this book, sociologist Judith R. Halasz examines the fascinating junctures between bohemian labor and life. Weaving together historiography, ethnography, and personal experiences of having been raised amidst downtown New York's bohemian communities, Halasz deciphers bohemians' unconventional behaviors and attitudes towards employment and the broader work world. From the nineteenth-century harbingers on Paris' Left Bank to the Beats, Underground, and more recent bohemian outcroppings on New York's Lower East Side, __The Bohemian Ethos__ traces the embodiment of a politically charged yet increasingly precarious form of cultural resistance to hegemonic social and economic imperatives. "The iconoclastic ingenuity of bohemians, from Gerard de Nerval to Allen Ginsberg, continually captivates the popular imagination; the worlds of fashion, advertising, and even real estate all capitalize on the alternative appeal of bohemian style. Persistently overlooked, however, is bohemians' distinctive relationship to work. In this book, sociologist Judith R. Halasz examines the fascinating junctures between bohemian labor and life. Weaving together historiography, ethnography, and personal experiences of having been raised amidst downtown New York's bohemian communities, Halasz deciphers bohemians' unconventional behaviors and attitudes towards employment and the broader work world. From the nineteenth-century harbingers on Paris' Left Bank to the Beats, Underground, and more recent bohemian outcroppings on New York's Lower East Side, The Bohemian Ethos traces the embodiment of a politically charged yet increasingly precarious form of cultural resistance to hegemonic social and economic imperatives"-- Provided by publisher Cover 1 Title 6 Copyright 7 Dedication 8 Contents 10 List of Tables 12 List of Figures 14 List of Maps 16 Acknowledgments 18 Credits 20 1 Introduction 22 2 The Parisian Prototype: 19th-Century Bohemia 32 3 The Beats: Political Poetics 48 4 The 1960s: A Generation in Revolt 73 5 The Underground 107 6 Get Back to Work: The Demise of the Underground 148 7 On the Margins of the Workaday World: Productivity, the Work Ethic, and Bohemian Self-Determination 191 8 Epilogue to a Scene: The Current Situation 205 Bibliography 214 Index 226