The World from Brown’s Lounge

With The demesne from Browns lounge around An ethnography of Black Middle-Class Play Michael J. bell shape provides a narrative and indication of the play appearance of essence class melanises within the con text edition of Browns Lounge, a neighborhood bar in West Philadelphia. At the time he did his field research at Browns, Bell was a white, male, doctoral panorama at the University of Pennsylvania. The reserve appears to be either his original dissertation or a well-nighwhat edited dissertation.The prose is accessible and not marked by the frequent subordinate clauses and qualification of statements that mars a good divvy up of academic writing (Bell xi, 1-7). According to Bell The World from Browns Lounge is a study in contraband American folklore (Bell ix). However he does not use the word folklore in the traditional sense of myths, tales, and traditions usually passed on orally or through folk art, except rather as the artistic communication . . . used by ordinar y people . . .that link us together in our day-after-day interactions (Bell ix). This folklore is studied in context, not merely as an academic exercise that might be do by reading a text apply about the folk beliefs of a people without regard to their get it ons. Bell describes what he saw in Browns and claims that it is folklore but pointedly refuses engage in an argument as to whether or not the material in the record is in fact folklore. For the purposes of The World from Browns Lounge the reader must assume that the book is folklore.Frankly, this distinction seems artificial the text can and should be judged on its methodology and analysis and not on attempts to fit the book to a disperseicular niche genre. Bell claims that the black center of attention class is (or at least was at the time the book was written) largely ignored in research with the focus being on the bearing and lifestyle of the poorer class. Even when the middle class has been addressed it has tended to interview psyches who exemplified their race and not observe members of the black middle class performing with each other(a).In essence Bell contends that at that time the research was done, the books failed to recognize that the black middle class existed at all (Bell 1-5). The methodology Bell used was to sit in Browns Bar at dissimilar times throughout the day, observing the patrons and participating in their interactions for a goal of about eighteen months beginning in 1972. The observation periods were typically three hours each. Bell describes himself as an active participant as he sedulous in the discussions that occurred at Browns as well as participating in the consumption of alcohol.The regular patrons were awargon of what he was doing and that descriptions of their activities might appear in his doctoral dissertation and possible a subsequent book. Bell enter the conversations that occurred so that he might study them later. In addition any individual who wis hed to could listen to any tapes, but no one chose to do so. Although Bell was aware that his presence in the black bar would run into the patrons, by being up front with them he hoped to minimize his affects on the patrons.In the process Bell did extended interviews with some of the key patrons (Bell 1-5). Interestingly he received a grant to engage in this research, which is good civilize if you can get it. Bell intended that his work describe how the day-to-day activities in a neighborhood bar reflect the values of the members of the neighborhood. He claims the study describes how the activities at Browns allow the patrons to conform to their desire to create and live within a world that allows them to be both black and middle class (Bell 5).To do this he describes interactions between the patrons, at times really quoting entire conversations and then attempts to classify and analyze them. These conversations are, at times, interest, but are common to many social situations an d not indications of middle class black behavior in the 1970s. Bell tries to make them so however. He claims that this behavior is an sample of middle class blacks playing with each other verbally and non-verbally by talking shit, styling, and profiling (Bell). Bell writes that these conversations are improvisations with deep, sophisticated significance for middle class blacks.For example in a discussion on scalawag 110 and analyzed on page 111 Bell offers the quest. The barman Harriet admits the customers generally, was a . . . was a . . . (four-second silence) pry Sailor in here yesterday? One of the patrons, Gill replies, I didnt see him. From these two sentences Bell draws the following analysis. Harriet was seeking direct information. Gill responded in the same fashion as if it were a request for information and nothing else. This is impartial enough and evidently obvious.However Bell is not satisfied with this explanation and seeks a deeper meaning, in asking after Jimmy, Harriet made it clear that she turn overd that it was appropriate for her to know his whereabouts. One feels the need to ask why Bell decide would emphasize such a point. essentially he may be correct, but a simpler, more straightforward conclusion seems to be preferable Harriet was curious about Jimmy. It is difficult to believe that at anytime during this process that Harriet consciously assumed it was proper for her to know where Jimmy was the day before.Similarly, Bell analyzes other conversations throughout the book. Instead of taking the discussions at face value Bell appears to believe each interaction is a continuous exchange of images of selfof who and what one isin order to induce the others present that all present are capable of acting coherently and correctly (Bell 8). This belief implies that each person at Browns is taking part in an improvisation performance determined to establish himself as an individual person and as a member of the group.In reality, it is far more plausibly that such conversations at Browns and similar ones at other bars and hot chocolate shops are just that, conversations between people trying to relax and ask a good time. The book suffers from a variety of problems besides the over analysis mentioned above. While reading the book one feels that Bell was describing a species that he is completely unrelated to in the same way that a zoologist might describe the behavior of a species of bird or mammal.Although the motivation for this distance appears to be an attempt to be as torpid as possible, certainly a laudable goal, when Bell describes or analyzes the activities in Browns and fails to place them within the contact of being middle class, black, or dismantle human the book suffers. In fact, Bell states this is what he is doing in the preface, instead of limiting his study to a particular ethnic group, age group, or occupation Bell defines his study to a particular place, Browns (Bell x). This tightly cerebrate limitation seems to greatly restrict the relevance of Bells work to other situations or people.Despite this self-imposed limitation, Bell makes frequent references to the behavior the middle class, though in Browns it is not the middle class, it is the only class. Bells research lacks a clearly delimitate identity. Although Bell purports to be providing a description of description of the black middle class at play, he provides no insight as to how the behavior of the middle class patrons differs from or is similar to the behavior of lower or upper class blacks as well as the behavior of classes of other races in their own neighborhood bar.Much of the behavior Bell describes seems to be no different than one might see in any local anaesthetic bar or coffee shop for even by reflexion a rerun of the television comedy Cheers. As pointed out in A Note on the Author in the last page of the book, Bell received his PhD and at the time of publication was an associate professor of English and folklore at Wayne State University. In addition he has promulgated a variety of articles on urban folklore in a spell of scholarly journals.A quick search of the databases at Questia reveal a get along of books that referred to The World from Browns Lounge, but for the most parts these were merely listings in the bibliographies at the back of these books, although Loic Wacquant refers to it in 2004 as a fine book in consistence & Soul Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer (181). All in all, Bell has adequate, if not impressive academic credentials in this area. The book could do with more careful editing. Although naturally the conversation among the patrons should not be edited, when Bell is providing narrative he should maintain consistent, grammatically correct standards.An example of a failure to do so is his inconsistent of his treatment of some talking to. For example, the term middle-class appears in the books title and on page 1 and middle class on page 5 e ven though both are used to describe the same thing. Occasionally Bell uses questionable grammatical constructions that should be corrected as well. To his credit, Bell uses perfunctory inline citations and provides an extensive bibliography that is useful. The World from Browns Lounge has no index, a feature that would build useful to students and scholars using the text for literary searches.Due to the unusual meanings of many of the words used in the context of Browns a glossary would be assistive as well. Ultimately the book is not particularly satisfying. Perhaps in 1972 when the research was done or in 1983 when the book was published the book had more impact, but in todays world The World from Browns Lounge seems unmistakably flat and uninteresting. One questions just what if anything Bell contributed to anthropological academic noesis that warrant his receiving a PhD with this dissertation supporting his candidacy, much less what justified its subsequent publication as a book.Although some of the play was interesting to read, Bells over analysis reduced it the trivial. Bells attempts to provide significance to ordinary conversations in a bar read more like long academic stretches in hopes of securing a doctorate than to do meaningful work. Works Cited Bell, Michael J. The World from Browns Lounge An Ethnography of Black Middle-Class Play. Urbana, IL University of Chicago Press, 1983 Wacquant, Loic. Body & Soul Notebooks of an Apprentice Boxer. New York Oxford University Press, 2004.