New Working-Class Studies

"We put the working class, in all its varieties, at the center of our work. The new working-class studies is not only about the labor movement, or about workers of any particular kind, or workers in any particular place―even in the workplace. Instead, we ask questions about how class works for people at work, at home, and in the community. We explore how class both unites and divides working-class people, which highlights the importance of understanding how class shapes and is shaped by race, gender, ethnicity, and place. We reflect on the common interests as well as the divisions between the most commonly imagined version of the working class―industrial, blue-collar workers―and workers in the 'new economy' whose work and personal lives seem, at first glance, to place them solidly in the middle class."―from the Introduction

In John Russo and Sherry Lee Linkon's book, contributors trace the origins of the new working-class studies, explore how it is being developed both within and across fields, and identify key themes and issues. Historians, economists, geographers, sociologists, and scholars of literature and cultural studies introduce many and varied aspects of this emerging field. Throughout, they consider how the study of working-class life transforms traditional disciplines and stress the importance of popular and artistic representations of working-class life.

John Russo is Professor of Labor Studies, Coordinator of the Labor Studies Program, and Co-Director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University. Sherry Lee Linkon is Professor of English and American Studies and Co-Director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University. Russo and Linkon are coauthors of Steeltown USA: Work and Memory in Youngstown.