WCSA24 Call for Presentations!

Come join us for the WCSA24 Conference at SUNY Old Westbury, Long Island, New York and on Zoom, June 6-8, 2024. Read the call, get info on the “Young Scholars and Activist Award,” Travel support, and find out how to submit here: WCSA Conferences. Deadline? December 15, 2023. Don’t miss it!

CfP: JWCS Seeking Contributions for Special Mini-Issue on Upcoming US Elections

The Journal of Working-Class Studies is seeking contributions to a special mini-issue focused on the upcoming US elections. We are looking for scholarly or commentary-style pieces that consider the potential impact of the election on working-class people across the US.

Please send submissions to editorial@workingclassstudiesjournal.com. The deadline for submissions is September 14th.

Reminder: Proposals for WCSA 2020 Conference Due THIS WEEK – Feb. 20!

Proposals for the Working-Class Studies Association’s 2020 conference, on RE-PLACING CLASS: COMMUNITY, POLITICS, WORK, AND LABOR IN A CHANGING WORLD, are due Feb. 20, 2020.

The conference will be held May 20-23, 2020 at Youngstown State University, in Youngstown, Ohio, and more information is available at the conference website, here.

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Reminder: Proposals for WCSA 2020 Conference Due Feb. 20!

Proposals for the Working-Class Studies Association’s 2020 conference, on RE-PLACING CLASS: COMMUNITY, POLITICS, WORK, AND LABOR IN A CHANGING WORLD, are due Feb. 20, 2020.

The conference will be held May 20-23, 2020 at Youngstown State University, in Youngstown, Ohio, and more information is available at the conference website, here.

2020 con logo

Reminder: Proposals for WCSA 2020 Conference Due Feb. 20!

Proposals for the Working-Class Studies Association’s 2020 conference, on RE-PLACING CLASS: COMMUNITY, POLITICS, WORK, AND LABOR IN A CHANGING WORLD, are due Feb. 20, 2020.

The conference will be held May 20-23, 2020 at Youngstown State University, in Youngstown, Ohio, and more information is available at the conference website, here.

2020 con logo

CfP from Radical Teacher: Teaching About Capitalism, War, and Empire. Due March 1, 2020

This special issue of Radical Teacher on teaching about capitalism, war, and empire seeks contributions from progressive educators who are using pedagogical innovations to help students, many of whom do not remember a world without permanent war, to connect the dots between the interests of capitalism’s global elite, corporate lobbyists, government spending, military contractors, increased wealth and income inequality, processes of racialization, and the militarization and surveillance of everyday life; the military on campus, and so on. Papers due March 1, 2020.

Learn More: https://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/radicalteacher/announcement/view/17
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CfP from Radical Teacher: New Student Movements: Teaching Toward, About, and From Within. Due Dec. 1, 2019

Radical Teacher invites submissions about new student movements, how progressive educators are teaching about them or toward them; and how educators and students are operating within them. Papers due December 1, 2019.

RT imageLearn more: https://radicalteacher.library.pitt.edu/ojs/index.php/radicalteacher/announcement/view/16

Call for Papers for WCSA’s 2020 Conference at Youngstown State University

We are excited to announce the WCSA2020CFP with dates for the 2020 Working-Class Studies Association Conference to be held at Youngstown State University in Youngstown, OH May 20-23, 2020.

Re-Placing Class: Community, Politics, Work, and Labor in a Changing World

Twenty-five years ago, the academic discipline of Working-Class Studies in the US was born in Youngstown, Ohio, as a group of scholars, activists, artists, workers, and practitioners converged around common goals of celebrating the working class in its diversity and complexity, and to advocate for a politics of social justice and equity. This year the Working-Class Studies Association returns to the place the discipline began for the 2020 conference at Youngstown State University, at a time of rising social tribalism, class conflict, and politically calculated populisms. As WCSA re-convenes in a place synonymous with working-class life, we hope to explore the following:

How can Working-Class Studies offer models for understanding the ways in which myriad local and global working classes intersect, cooperate, compete or are co-opted by other interests? What is the place of class as an instrument of either division or unification, both historically and now?  How do global, national, and local politics and policies exploit, ignore, or alternately, empower and enable workers? What potentials exist for solidarity amongst and within migrant, global, regional and local working classes?  How is diversity within the working class essentialized, fragmented, or, alternately, harnessed and maximized for social and political agendas? How can we reposition, or “re-Place” class in our current global politics as a site for effective action?

Further, what is the role of “Place” as geographical, social, psychic, and economic formation? How does “Place” defined by social, political and economic attributes, define community, which is underpinned by identity, ethnicity, status and power relationships? How does “Place” in these broad definitions provoke ways of thinking about the locations, spaces and places of the working class and Working-Class studies today?

We welcome proposals from multiple disciplines and perspectives: pedagogical, theoretical, creative, and professional. Themes and topics for papers, panels and presentations might include—but are not limited to:

  • Populisms, Diasporas, and Nationalisms
  • Intersectionality
  • Race, Capitalism, and Empire
  • Environmental Justice
  • Critical Race Studies
  • Policies and Politics
  • De-Industrialization
  • Global, Regional or Migrant Working Classes
  • Urban/Rural Working-Class life
  • The Cultural Politics of Class
  • Place and/or displacement of working-class communities
  • Labor now—Locally, Regionally and/or Globally
  • Class, Education, and Equity
  • Resilience, Resistance, and “Class Warfare”

The CWCS at Youngstown State welcomes proposals from academics and practitioners across disciplines, community activists and organizers, and public scholars. Proposal abstracts for papers, creative works/exhibitions, and roundtables of no more approximately 350 words are due by Feb.20, 2020.  Please email submissions to wcsaconference2020@gmail.com

 

WCSA at ASA’s

Class cultures were a hot topic at the American Sociological Association conference a couple of weeks ago, not just because Michele Lamont is the new ASA president and she made “Culture and Inequalities” the overall conference theme, but also because 3 Working-Class Studies Association members worked to increase awareness of WCSA and all of our opportunities among the sociologists.

Jessi Streib, Allison Hurst, and Betsy Leondar-Wright (and their publishers) gave out many copies of a Class Cultures Caucus flyer with information about WCSA and the newly formed Class Cultures Caucus.

These three also organized a get-together over dinner which was well-attended. Some WCSA members and attenders came (including Lisa McKenzie, Colby King, Debbie Warnock, Jenny Stuber), but also people new to our network, including Joan Williams, author of White Working Class.

In the spirit of WCSA Treasurer Ken Estey’s encouragement to “go forth and multiply,” participants went out and encouraged interested sociologists to get involved with WCSA! The organizers gathered a list of over 30 people newly interested in WCSA. Jessi shared an inspiring description at the dinner for how great the WCSA conferences are, and we hope we may see some new people come to Stony Brook next year as a result.

Besides info on the next WCSA conference, the journal, the blog, the Caucus, Working-Class Academics and Class Action, participants also shared a call for papers that other WCSA members might be interested in. This CfP is for a mini-conference on Class and Culture convened by Annette Lareau and Elliot Weininger at the Eastern Sociological Society in February in Baltimore.

The Class Cultures Caucus founders (Barb Jensen, Jack Metzgar and Jeff Torlina as well as sociologists Jessi, Allison, and Betsy ) will come be working on plans to encourage some of those new folks to get more involved with WCSA. In the meantime, please continue to encourage other folks to get more involved with WCSA.

CfP – The Inaugural Conference on the Grange in America and Beyond Nov. 3-5, 2017, Spokane, WA

Please see the CfP from The Grange, below:

The National Grange of the Order of Patrons and Husbandry, more commonly referred to as The Grange, will celebrate its 150th anniversary in 2017. For 150 years The Grange has been one of the foremost organizations in advocacy for agriculture and rural America. The Grange has also been an important participant in promoting policies regarding the temperance movement, women’s suffrage, immigration policy, the direct election of U.S. Senators, and free trade.

To celebrate this long history of advocacy in agriculture, rural issues, and other important national policies the Grange is issuing a Call for Papers for its Inaugural Conference on the Grange in America and Beyond. The conference will be held in Spokane, WA at the Red Lion Hotel, November 3-5, 2017.

Considering the reach of The Grange on a number of important issues throughout its 150 year history the topics for this conference can touch on innumerable subjects. We hope to gather submissions from a wide-range of disciplines ranging from Sociology to History to Economics to Art. We welcome papers from all disciplines and any topic involving The Grange in its storied history.

Propose a Workshop

In addition to the papers, we also encourage potential attendees to propose a conference workshop. This session will allow attendees to interact with Grange members and present expert knowledge in relevant for Granges, such as document preservation or legal issues relevant for fraternal nonprofits.

Guidelines for Paper Submissions

The conference is open to academics, general researchers/historians and students with knowledge of the Grange. We encourage potential participants to submit a note of intent of attending the conference. Specific submission forms for paper and workshop proposals and notes of intent are available at http://www.nationalgrange.org/research.

Paper and workshop proposals are due by June 1, 2017. Notification of a conference acceptance will be on or about June 30, 2017.

Please submit a 250 word abstract to Jason Edwards (j3edwards@bridgew.edu) and Maria Hegbloom (mhegbloom@bridgew.edu). Please direct any specific inquiries regarding the program should be directed to Amanda Brozana, National Communication and Development Director, communications@nationalgrange.org.

We look forward to seeing you in Spokane.

Sincerely,

Betsy E. Huber

President, National Grange