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Resuscitating Class

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 January 2016

Extract

A sense of crisis and uncertainty seems pervasive among many social historians and historical sociologists who have studied the relationship between economic disadvantage and protest politics. Within the last five or so years, edited volumes and special issues of journals have encouraged scholars to “bring class back in,” to explore what some worry is the “end of labor history,” or to “rethink working-class history” in the wake of postmodernism, the turn to discursive and cultural analysis, and the growing number of scholars whose substantive interests involve issues of race and gender.

Even those who celebrate the rich diversity of subject matters explored by contemporary labor and working-class historians are worried about scholars jumping ship because “engaged history, in possession at least of the conceit of making a difference, has moved elsewhere, to other subject areas,” to quote Ira Katznelson (1994: 7). I myself have chosen to take a “leave of absence” from studying the mutual constitution of gender and class.

Type
A Roundtable on Gender, Race, Class, Culture, and Politics: Where Do We Go from Here?
Copyright
Copyright © Social Science History Association 1998

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