B.A. (Cincinnati, Ohio), M.A. (Toronto)
Supervised by Hugh Hodges
Corey Ponder is a Ph.D student in Cultural Studies at Trent University. In 2009, he graduated from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in Human Geography. He completed his Masters work (2011) at the University of Toronto. His major research paper entitled, “Spatializing Neoliberalism in Toronto: New Strategies, New Tactics” traced the mayoral election of Rob Ford through Ontario’s ‘Common Sense Revolution’ and amalgamation. The argument tragically illuminated how the very people who elected Ford are likely to be those most negatively affected by his morphology of (urban) neoliberalism.
At the Ph.D level, Corey’s research enters into the foray of sub-cultural studies, without forgetting his interests in the urban environment. His dissertation focuses on the predominately youth driven straight edge sub-culture in the 1980s and early ‘90s in Cincinnati, Ohio. Individuals, often young white males, took the indoctrinated ‘script‘ (manifested in Minor Threat’s timeless classic Straight Edge) and recast it as an exclusionary sub-culture in which young men govern and control the socio-political spaces of straight edge. The argument connects the spatially variant exclusionary sub-culture to the changing (neoliberal) urban environment and the draconian effects of Reaganomics on the city. As particular blue-collared socio-economic positions were threatened in the face of urban transformation, how does the straight edge movement represent one way in which young, white, dislocated men respond to economic restructuring and urban decline? Is straight edge a nostalgic attempt to refashion urbanity in an attempt to return to the ‘good old days’ of the previous generations more fluid economic mobility? This study nuances popular narratives of straight edge, which deduce the moment and its participants to a homogeneous white, upper-middle class demographic. Listen to Trial.