Photocopy Lore and the Naturalization of the Corporate Body
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2807675 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Danielle M Roemer (corresponding author) |
| Year | 1994 |
| Volume | 107 |
| Issue | 423 |
| Pages | 121 |
| Publication date | 1994-01-01 |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of American Folklore (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0021-8715 • E-ISSN: 1535-1882 |
| Publisher | University of Illinois Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.2307/541076 |
| OpenAlex | W2333176989 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 7 |
Parodic and satiric photocopy lore gives employees the opportunity to personalize the allegedly depersonalized environment in which they work. Such lore provides this opportunity through symbolic extensions and representations of the material, most intriguingly through those of the human body. In the process, the corporational is brought down to the level of the in the service of employee iconoclasm and assuagement. IF THE INTENT OF corporate business is to make and assure profits, its effect is often to inhibit worker individuality and so cause a sense of loss. This, I suggest, is the implication of the parodic and satiric photocopy lore that circulates within environments. In its display and content, this lore suggests employees' discontent with the depersonalized environment in which they work. This discontent is illustrated in lore that celebrates the very ground of human personalization: the body and other aspects of materiality. It emphasizes an exaggerated and iconoclastic naturalism, a foregrounding of the base and the regenerative. The empirical aspects and corporeal representations of this lore are potently symbolic given their use in the environment, which conventionally privileges surface, containment, and efficient propriety. The analysis I pursue here is folkloristically unconventional in that it is presented primarily as speculation.' But, as I indicate, it accords in significant respects with the insights of other researchers who are concerned with the genre and with folkloric reactions to management-employee relations. To date, most of the work on photocopy lore has been oriented toward collection and classification. My intent here is to offer what I believe are fruitful lines of inquiry
Naturalization · Sociology · Cinema and Media Studies · Demography · History · Shakespeare, Adaptation, and Literary Criticism · Visual Culture and Art Theory
| Citations per year | 0.14 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 1997 - 2021 (25) |
| Highly cited | No |