WCSA at LAWCHA & MLA

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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.”
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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.
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Students discussing Karen Gaffney’s Dismantling the Racism Machine: A Manual and Toolbox at UNC-Pembroke’s annual Social Justice Symposium, Oct. 2018.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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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.”
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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.”
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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.
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“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.

Book Notes ~ Fall 2018

Please take a look at recently published books related to the field of working-class studies.  Full descriptions for each are available here.

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Images from the first two days of the WCSA Conference

 

 

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New Book Published on Dismantling Racism

Karen Gaffney, Professor of English at Raritan Valley Community College and author of the blog, Divided No Longer, has published Dismantling the Racism Machine:A Manual and Toolbox.

Here’s a description of the book from Routledge Press:

“While scholars have been developing valuable research on race and racism for decades, this work does not often reach the beginning college student or the general public, who rarely learn a basic history of race and racism. If we are to dismantle systemic racism and create a more just society, people need a place to begin. This accessible, introductory, and interdisciplinary guide can be one such place. Grounded in critical race theory, this book uses the metaphor of the Racism Machine to highlight that race is a social construct and that racism is a system of oppression based on invented racial categories. It debunks the false ideology that race is biological. As a manual, this book presents clear instructions for understanding the history of race, including whiteness, starting in colonial America, where the elite created a hierarchy of racial categories to maintain their power through a divide-and-conquer strategy. As a toolbox, this book provides a variety of specific action steps that readers can take once they have developed a foundational understanding of the history of white supremacy, a history that includes how the Racism Machine has been recalibrated to perpetuate racism in a supposedly “post-racial” era.”

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Panel on Systematic Racism at Northampton Community College

Karen Gaffney recently spoke on a panel alongside Tim Wise, Prof. Denise Francois-Seeney, and Prof. Kamau Kenyatta about anti-racism at Northampton Community College in Bethlehem, PA. Prof. Jim Von Schilling moderated the panel. It was a great discussion attended by an audience of at least 150 people about the persistence of systemic racism, strategies for ending white supremacy, how everyone can take action, and the inspiring work of Black Lives Matter activists.img_7889-1