The Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies is a timely volume that provides an overview of this interdisciplinary field that emerged in the 1990s in the context of deindustrialization, the rise of the service economy, and economic and cultural globalization. The Handbook brings together scholars, teachers, activists, and organizers from across three continents to focus on the study of working-class peoples, cultures, and politics in all their complexity and diversity.
Panelists include contributors:
Sherry Linkon, Georgetown University
Colby King, University of South Carolina Upstate
Simon Lee, Texas State University
Allison Hurst, Oregon State University
And co-editors Michele Fazio, Christie Launius, and Tim Strangleman
Moderated by Jack Metzgar, Professor Emeritus, Roosevelt University
The Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies is now available for pre-order from the publisher’s website here.
The book is edited by three former Working-Class Studies Association Presidents, Michele Fazio, Christie Launius, and Tim Strangleman. From the publisher’s website, the book:
is a timely volume that provides an overview of this interdisciplinary field that emerged in the 1990s in the context of deindustrialization, the rise of the service economy, and economic and cultural globalization. The Handbook brings together scholars, teachers, activists, and organizers from across three continents to focus on the study of working-class peoples, cultures, and politics in all their complexity and diversity. The Handbook maps the current state of the field and presents a visionary agenda for future research by mingling the voices and perspectives of founding and emerging scholars.
The Handbook features contributions from dozens of WCSA members! You can see the Table of Contents here.
Past Working-Class Studies Association President, and Professor of English at the University of North Carolina-Pembroke, Michele Fazio has won the University of North Carolina’s System Award for Teaching Excellence.
The award is the highest post-secondary award in the state of North Carolina. Fazio will be formally honored and will serve as UNC-Pembroke’s winter commencement speaker.
Michele Fazio, PhD, former WCSA president and Associate Professor at UNC-Pembroke, will host a documentary film screening and discussion on Voices of the Lumbee (2016) as part of American International College’s Lectures and Forums Series. The series is coordinated in part by WCSA member, and Associate Professor of History at AIC, Gary Jones.
The event will be November 7, 2019 at 11am in AIC’s Campus Center Auditorium, and is free and open to the public.
Please join other attendees for a reception and talk on “A Neglected Legacy: Reclaiming a Radical Past,” from former WCSA President, Michele Fazio, PhD at Lawrence Heritage State Park Sunday, October 6, at 2pm.
The exhibit tells the story of how Fazio, an Italian-American originally from Massachusetts, discovered her family’s hidden history. An alumna of MA’s Bridgewater State University, Fazio is an Associate Professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
The exhibit is open daily from 9am until 4pm, October 6th through 28th.
1 Jackson Street
Lawrence, MA 01840
(978) 794-1655
The program is supported in part by grants from the Lawrence Cultural Council and the Freetown Cultural Council, local agencies which are supported by the Massachusetts Cultural Council, a state agency.
Kathy Newman, Carnegie Mellon University, presenting “Waterfronts and Garment Jungles: Reconsidering Unions and Gangsters in Postwar Film” at LAWCHA’s 2019 Annual Conference, “Workers on the Move: Workers’ Movements.”
Karen Gaffney, author of Dismantling the Racism Machine: A Manual and Toolbox, serving as the keynote speaker for UNC-Pembroke’s annual Social Justice Symposium, Oct. 2018.
Students discussing Karen Gaffney’s Dismantling the Racism Machine: A Manual and Toolbox at UNC-Pembroke’s annual Social Justice Symposium, Oct. 2018.
Ben Clarke, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, presenting, “The Writing Classes: Rethinking Working-Class Literature” at the annual Modern Language Association conference, Jan. 2019.
Lindsay Bartkowski, Ph.D. candidate at Temple University, presenting “Elisions in Working-Class Studies: Domesticity and the Feminization of Labor” at the annual Modern Language Association conference, Jan. 2019.
Michele Fazio, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, discussing her family archival project at LAWCHA’s 2019 Annual Conference, “Workers on the Move: Workers’ Movements.”
Eric Kaufman, Ohio State University, presented “Class Condescension or Affectionate Solidarity? Representation of Labor in 1950s American Musical Theater” along with Kathy Newman, Carnegie Mellon University, “Waterfronts and Garment Jungles: Reconsidering Unions and Gangsters in Postwar Film,” on the panel “The Dramatic Media’s Representations of Workers, Unions and Labor Conflict in 1950s America” at LAWCHA’s 2019 Annual Conference, “Workers on the Move: Workers’ Movements.”
Paul Mischler, Indiana University, talking about “Narratives of Parental Influence in Activist Life Stories: Breaking With/or Carrying on Family Traditions” at LAWCHA’s 2019 Annual Conference, “Workers on the Move: Workers’ Movements.”
Carol Quirke, SUNY Old Westbury, presenting “The Memorial Day Massacre: Stories They Never Told Me, Pictures I Couldn’t Help But See” at LAWCHA’s 2019 Annual Conference, “Workers on the Move: Workers’ Movements.” Marcella Bencivenni, Hostos College and City University of New York, served as chair and panel respondent.
“Families and Radicalism: Oral Histories, Archives, Forgotten Stories and Narratives of Resistance” panel at LAWCHA’s 2019 Annual Conference, “Workers on the Move: Workers’ Movements,” featuring Michele Fazio, Carol Quirke, Marcella Bencivenni, and Paul Mishler.
A panel at the American Studies Association, Class Contingencies: Visibility and Absence in Contemporary Working-Class Representations, featuring Sherry Linkon, Robin Brooks, Joseph Entin, and Derrick A. Jones.
Terry Easton, Associate Professor of English, Univ. of North Georgia, talking about his community project, “Border Crossing with Oral History and Photography.”
Michele Fazio, Scott Henkel, Christie Launius, Vanessa Fonseca-Chavez, and Terry Easton at the American Studies Association, Nov. 2019, talking about the emerging field of working-class studies.
Sherry Linkon presenting, “Deindustrial Intersections: Narrating Race, Gender, and Precarity in Contemporary Working Class Novels.”
Dr. Vanessa Fonseca-Chávez, Assistant Professor of English, Arizona State University, discussing her interdisciplinary ethnographic project, “Following the Manito Trail,” that documents Hispanic New Mexican, or Manito, migration from New Mexico to different parts of the United States during the last century.
Members of the WCSA have been actively participating in conferences throughout the past academic year, including the American Studies Association, the Modern Language Association, the Southeastern American Studies Association, and the Labor and Working-Class History Association. This week will feature a number of images of folks in action.
Southeastern American Studies Association ~ March 2019
Students presenting works in progress at the Southeastern American Studies Association March 2019 conference: (front row) Castiel Dixon, University of North Georgia, “Falling Down, Falling Apart, and Finding Home in Reservation Blues;” Robyn McNeil, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, “Blues, Body, and South: The Representation of African-American Women Blues Entertainers in Poetry;” (back row) Asia Muhammad, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, “The Walking Dead: Michonne, Tropes, and Exploitation;” Crystal Hester, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, “The Modern Epic: Comics and Working-Class Literature;” and William Adam Hollis IV, University of North Georgia, “‘The expression of a thousand present miseries’: Stephen Crane and Class.”
The panel, “Talking Back through Working-Class Literature,” at the Southeastern American Studies Association March 2019 conference: Asia Muhammad, Crystal Hester, Castiel Dixon, Robyn McNeil, William Adam Hollis IV, and Michele Fazio.
Michele Fazio, University of North Carolina at Pembroke, and Terry Easton, University of North Georgia, presenting with their students at the Southeastern American Studies Association March 2019 conference.
The June 2019 issue of TheJournal of Working-Class Studies includes a series of reviewed articles, a creative piece, a student essay pod, and book reviews.
Past-President Michele Fazio presented, “Mining the Archives: Memory and Materiality in the Lives of Sacco and Vanzetti,” at “We Still Remember,” an event commemorating the lives of Sacco and Vanzetti, sponsored by the Sacco and Vanzetti Commemoration Society and the Dante Alighieri Society of Cambridge. The program featured a screening of La Marcia Del Dolore (The March of Sorrow), rare film footage of the funeral of Sacco and Vanzetti, written and produced by Robert D’Attilio, as well as commentary by Governor Michael Dukakis, Distinguished Professor of Political Science at Northeastern University, and music by Boston-based punk folk band, Jake and the Infernal Machine.
