For many literary scholars, the proletarian novel is one of the quintessential genres of political fiction. While this genre – typically understood as narratives that address working-class experience from a Marxist perspective of class-consciousness and activism – has a relatively slim (albeit significant) tradition in a United States context, there is a much broader body of US literature that engages constellations and experiences of labor-related exploitation, oppression, poverty, and/or precarity. In this seminar, we will probe into this tradition, reading and discussing literary texts that range from the early 19th century to the contemporary period. These readings will be accompanied by discussions of how literary and cultural scholarship has conceptualized (the working) class in a US context, including the intersectionality of class with other axes of social inequality, what traditions and conventions of ‘writing work’ it has identified, and how it has proposed to read the politics of such literary texts.
Please note that this is a discussion- and reading-intensive graduate seminar. Students outside the MA American Studies are generally welcome to join the class, but should inquire for prerequisites with Prof. Kanzler (katja.kanzler@uni-leipzig.de).
- Trainer/in: Kanzler Katja