WCSA2021 Plenary Today at 1:00pm EST! Matt Brim, “The Unfashionable Line of Poor Queer Studies”

Join us at from at 1:00pm EST for a talk by Dr. Matt Brim, Associate Professor of Queer Studies in the English Department at the College of Staten Island, City University of New York. Brim is this year’s winner of the Jake Ryan and Charles Sackrey Award for books by writers of working-class origins or work that speaks to the issues of working-class academic experience. Of his book, Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University, this year’s judges remark in our awards press release:

The award judges write that this is “exactly the sort of work that the Ryan & Sackrey Award was intended to honor. One of the main insights of writing by working-class academics is that class is imbricated throughout our academic institutions; that there is no ‘escape,’ there is only erasure (mostly at elite institutions that can afford this).  […] This is a book full of insights and powerful personal anecdotes and one that makes an important argument: ‘Poor Queer Studies’ can ‘galvanize interclass [anti-racist] cross-institutional queer formations that do not rely on a unidirectional, aspirational model of progress’ (3). We can remake our institutions so that they serve all of us, and this is one great example of where to start.”

We look forward to today’s plenary and encourage our members to attend! To access the zoom link, be sure to register on our conference website.

Press Release: WCSA Award Winners

We are pleased to announce the winners of this year’s Working-Class Studies Association Awards for work produced in 2020. See our full Press Release here!

C.L.R. James Award for Best Book for Academic or General Audiences
Sarah Attfield, Class on Screen: The Global Working Class in Contemporary Cinema.

The Jake Ryan and Charles Sackrey Award for books by writer(s) of working-class origins or work that speaks to issues of the working-class academic experience
Matt Brim, Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University

Tillie Olsen Award for Creative Writing
eds. Jim Daniels and M.L. Lieber, RESPECT: The Poetry of Detroit Music
David Heska Wanbli Weiden, Winter Counts

Russo & Linkon Award for Best Published Article or Essay for Academic or General Audiences
Katie Beswick, “Slaggy Mums: Class, Single Motherhood and Performing Endurance”

Studs Terkel Award for Single Published Articles or Series, Broadcast Media, Multimedia, and Film in Media and Journalism
Joseph Sciorra, “Protesta Per Sacco & Vanzetti”

Constance Coiner Award for Completed Dissertations
Lindsay Bartkowski, “Figuring Women’s Work: The Cultural Production of Care and Labor in the Industrial U.S.”
Michelle Gaffey, “Subjects of Economy: Social Documentary Poetics and Contemporary Poetry of Work”


Our award ceremony will take place today, Tuesday, June 8 at 4:30pm EDT on zoom. Join us as we celebrate all the impressive new work produced by our members during an especially difficult year. To access the zoom link, you should register for #WCSA2021 on our conference website!

Many thanks to those that served as this year’s judges. To read more about their selections, read the full Press Release!

WCSA 2021 begins TODAY!

Join us at 10:30am EDT for an opening address and welcome from our President Elect, Joseph Varga.

Today’s sessions include…

  • Methods and Methodologies in Working-Class Studies
  • Responding to Precarity
  • Working-Class Students Journeys
  • Working Bodies in Literature and Dance

…and many more!

See the full program at our conference website: www.wcsa2021.com