Crossing Class: The Invisible Wall

CROSSING CLASS: The Invisible Wall. A Wising Up Anthology. Editors: Charles D. Brockett and Heather Tosteson.

CLASS: It's the great unspeakable in a society dedicated to the proposition that all people are created equal, with inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, and that believes in the redistributive power of personal ambition, hard work, self-intention and self-definition. It might be the most powerful and intractable of social divisions, its effects potent even within culture, race, or gender. Whether we buy in consciously or not, we are all subject to the shaping power of class.

But what exactly does it mean to be shaped by class? How does this shaping affect what we long for, strive for, believe is possible--not just for us but for those around us and the world at large? What happens to our understanding of class, of our society and of ourselves, when we cross class boundaries upwards ordownwards, willingly or unwillingly, through education, employment, marriage, divorce, friendships and other meaningful relationships, immigration or emigration, illness, economic or political upheaval? How does our experience of class mobility, wanted or unwanted, change our understanding of ourselves, our social relationships, our sense of social agency, our sense of our society? How does it change our understanding of the possibilities and challenges of living out E Pluribus Unum?

Thirty contemporary writers help us explore the impact of class and inequality through fiction, memoir, poetry--and some graphs.

CONTRIBUTORS: Danisa Bell, Maida Berenblatt, Sarah Bigham, J. Andrew Briseño, Charles D. Brockett, Elizabeth Burton, Marian Mathews Clark, Gillian Esquivia Cohen, Susan G. Duncan, Katherin Hervey, Lowell Jaeger, Daniel M. Jaffe, Murali Kamma, Judith J. Katz, John Laue, Michele Markarian, Nancy L. Meyer, Carl Palmer, Mark Pawlak, Patricia Smith Ranzoni, Mary Kay Rummel, Ada Jill Schneider, Patty Somlo, Jane St. Clair, Robert Stinson, Heather Tosteson, Donald R. Vogel, Mark D. Walker, Ken Williams, Andrena Zawinski

CHARLES BROCKETT has a PhD from UNC-Chapel Hill and is a recipient of several Fulbright and National Endowment for the Humanities awards. A retired political science professor, he has written two well-received books on Central America and numerous social science journal articles and book chapters. With Heather Tosteson, he is co-founder of Universal Table and Wising Up Press and co-editor of the Wising Up Anthologies.

HEATHER TOSTESON is the author of seven books of fiction, poetry and non-fiction, including most recently the novel The Philosophical Transactions of Maria van Leeuwenhoek, Antoni's Dochter. She has worked in health communications with a focus on communication across disciplines, racism, social trust, and how belief systems develop and change. She has an MFA (UNC-Greensboro) and PhD in English and Creative Writing (Ohio University).