Synopses & Reviews
This work challenges the field of British cultural studies to return to the question of social class as a primary focus of study. The chapters examine contemporary working-class life and its depiction in the media through a number of case studies on topics such as popular cinema, football, romance magazines and club culture. The essays pose methodologies for understanding working-class responses to dominant culture, and explore the contradictions and limitations of the traditional Marxist model. The book's contributors conclude that it is time for cultural theorists to revisit issues of working-class cultural formations and to renew the original radical intentions of the discipline by reintegrating class analysis into social templates of race, sexuality and gender.
Synopsis
In the formative years of British cultural studies, theorists such as Raymond Williams and Richard Hoggart focused their work on the question of class. As theorists in the intervening years have moved away from class as a mode of inquiry, this volume challenges contemporary scholars to revisit it. These essays examine the representation of working-class life in cinema, sports, romance magazines, and club culture. From working-class identity to academia, from homophobic violence to true crime tales, Cultural Studies and the Working Class proposes a viable future for the discipline of cultural theory: one that renews its original radical intention to integrate the analysis of class into that of race, sexuality, and gender.
Synopsis
This work challenges the field of British cultural studies to return to the question of social class as a primary focus of study. The chapters examine contemporary working-class life and its depiction in the media through a number of case studies on topics such as popular cinema, football, romance magazines and club culture. The essays pose methodologies for understanding working-class responses to dominant culture, and explore the contradictions and limitations of the traditional Marxist model. The book's contributors conclude that it is time for cultural theorists to revisit issues of working-class cultural formations and to renew the original radical intentions of the discipline by reintegrating class analysis into social templates of race, sexuality and gender.
Table of Contents
Part 1. Issues in Working-Class Identity and Methodology1. If Anywhere: Class Identifications and Cultural Studies Academics2. Discursive Mothers and Academic Fandom: Class, Generation and the Production of Theory3. The Theme That Dare Not Speak Its Name: Class and Recent British Film4. 'This Is About Us, This Is Our Film! Personal and Popular Discourses of 'Underclass'5. Black Women and Social-Class IdentityPart 2. Class, Taste and Space6. Culture, Class and Taste7. Escape and Escapism: Representing Working-Class Women8. The Appearance of Class: Challenges in Gay Space9. Children's Urban Landscapes: Configurations of Class and PlacePart 3: Gender, Fictions and Working-Class Subjectivities10. 'Why Do You Say I Am?' Jesus, Gender and the (Working-Class) Family Romance11. Death in the Good Old Days: True Crime Tales and Social History12. 'Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man': Social Class and the Female Voice in
Nil by Mouth13. Homophobic Violence: The Hidden Injuries of Class14. Millwall Football Club: Masculinity, Race and Belonging