New book co-edited by Downing Fellow published
Re-Imagining Class, a new book co-edited by Dr Liesbeth François, Fellow in Modern and Medieval Languages, has been published by Leuven University Press.
The new book, which features essays from 17 contributors, offers a unique cross-cultural and multimedia approach to class identity and precarity in literature, theatre and film.
Demonstrating the ways in which culture opens up new ways to imagining and re-imagining class as an economic relation, an identity category and as a subjective experience, the volume sits firmly within current debates about the impact of social mobility, precarious work and intersectional structures of exploitation.
To demonstrate its overall argument, the book takes examples from British, French, Spanish, German, American, Swedish and Taiwanese culture.
Dr François said: “This book is the result of an international and interdisciplinary workshop I organised with a colleague in German literature from my former university, KU Leuven. I believe that the chapters offer valuable contributions to a wider and topical discussion on the way in which literature, film and performance art make sense of notions of class that are both omnipresent and in a process of radical transformation.
"As a whole, the volume aims to bridge the gap between the identity-focused critical apparatus that started to dominate debates from the 1990s onwards and the more traditional understanding of class as a structural condition. The manifold strategies that our contributors examine show how culture helps us think social belonging, exclusion and mobility as a lived experience that fundamentally impacts the way in which we imagine ourselves and the societies in which we live.”
The book is available to read on the Open Access website and in print. Paperbacks can be purchased via the Leuven University Press website.
Published 28 May 2024