Cultural Studies and the Working Class

This work challenges the field of British cultural studies to return to the question of social class as a primary focus of study. The chapters examine contemporary working-class life and its depiction in the media through a number of case studies on topics such as popular cinema, football, romance magazines and club culture. The essays pose methodologies for understanding working-class responses to dominant culture, and explore the contradictions and limitations of the traditional Marxist model. The book's contributors conclude that it is time for cultural theorists to revisit issues of working-class cultural formations and to renew the original radical intentions of the discipline by reintegrating class analysis into social templates of race, sexuality and gender.

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Part 1. Issues in Working-Class Identity and Methodology

1. If Anywhere: Class Identifications and Cultural Studies Academics
2. Discursive Mothers and Academic Fandom: Class, Generation and the Production of Theory
3. The Theme That Dare Not Speak Its Name: Class and Recent British Film
4. 'This Is About Us, This Is Our Film! Personal and Popular Discourses of 'Underclass'
5. Black Women and Social-Class Identity
   Part 2. Class, Taste and Space
6. Culture, Class and Taste
7. Escape and Escapism: Representing Working-Class Women
8. The Appearance of Class: Challenges in Gay Space
9. Children's Urban Landscapes: Configurations of Class and Place
   Part 3: Gender, Fictions and Working-Class Subjectivities
10. 'Why Do You Say I Am?' Jesus, Gender and the (Working-Class) Family Romance
11. Death in the Good Old Days: True Crime Tales and Social History
12. 'Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man': Social Class and the Female Voice in Nil by Mouth
13. Homophobic Violence: The Hidden Injuries of Class
14. Millwall Football Club: Masculinity, Race and Belonging