Working-Class Studies:
Intersections with Race, Gender, and Sexuality
The Sixth Biennial Conference of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University
Co-sponsored by the Race, Gender, Class Project of Southern University of New Orleans
May 14-17, 2003, Youngstown, Ohio
Keynote speakers:
- Evelyn Hu-DeHart, Director, Center for the Study of Ethnicity in America, Brown University
Exposing the Underside: Understanding Globalization from Race, Gender and Class Perspectives - Agymah Kamau, immigrant novelist, University of Oklahoma
The Writer in his Society - Bonnie Thornton Dill, Director, Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity, University of Maryland
Intersectional Analysis: Toward Rethinking the Working Class - Michael Honey, oral historian, Harry Bridges Chair in Labor Studies, University of Washington, Tacoma
Black Workers Remember: Intersections of Race, Class, and Gender in Personal Narratives of Black Workers
Conference Theme
One of the central concerns of new working-class studies is the complex relationship between class, race, gender, sexuality, and other aspects of culture and identity. How do these concepts intersect, and how are they useful to our efforts to understand working-class culture and politics? How are individual and group identities shaped by these categories of diversity and culture? How do tensions and connections related to race, gender, and sexuality shape working-class organizing, activism, and daily life? How have the relationships between these categories changed over time, and how do they differ in various places?
The conference will include formal and informal presentations and roundtables, performances, film showings, poetry readings, art exhibitions and community activities. Areas of exploration include literature of and by the working class; history; material and popular culture; current workplace issues; geography and landscape; journalism; sociology and economics; union organizing and practice; museum studies; the arts; multiculturalism; ethnography, biography, autobiography; pedagogy; and personal narratives of work.
For registration and conference materials contact, Patty LaPresta, Biennial Conference, Center for Working-Class Studies, Youngstown State University, Youngstown, Ohio 44555. Fax or e-mail inquiries should be sent to Patty LaPresta at (330) 941-4622 and pmlapresta@ysu.edu. Conference registration and other materials will be available at www.as.ysu.edu/~cwcs.