Critical Approaches to American Working-Class Literature

<p>This book is one of the first collections on a neglected field in American literature: that written by and about the working-class. Examining literature from the 1850s to the present contributors use a wide variety of critical approaches expanding readers’ understanding of the critical lenses that can be applied to working-class literature. Drawing upon theories of media studies postcolonial studies cultural geography and masculinity studies the essays consider slave narratives contemporary poetry and fiction Depression-era newspaper plays and ethnic American literature. Depicting the ways that working-class writers render the lives the volume explores the question of what difference class makes and how it intersects with gender race ethnicity and geographical location.</p>