Journal of Class and Culture Third Annual Conference

Journal of Class and Culture Third Annual Conference

This is a free event

Join us for this collaboration between The University of Hertfordshire and London Metropolitan University for the Third Journal of Class & Culture conference . From its first issue the journal has been a provocative theoretical and empirical intervention into debates concerning class and culture. We reject and challenge the rendering of class as an archaic concept and engage with class as a dynamic category actively shaped by the changing demands of capitalism.

The conference aims to bring together working-class academics, practitioners, and researchers from across a range of educational and public sector settings. It is open to all, specifically those who are interested in themes including education, media, sociology, criminology, psychology, community development and public health. By approaching the question of class from both historical and contemporary perspectives as an engagement with the everyday and addressing subjects and events which might appear insignificant or disconnected - but when viewed through the lens of class become important – reveals much about the societies in which we live. We welcome anyone, especially those with lived experience of the conference themes, individuals or groups who want to get more informed on issues related to class and culture and those who are keen to envision a positive future for the working-class.

It is also an opportunity to meet the editors and discuss ideas for contributions to the journal and ways to take the journal forward.

Intellect will also be there and they are keen to commission book proposals if any are forthcoming.

Lunch will be provided

PANELS AND SPEAKERS

10-00 -11-15 Panel One -The Politics of Class

Professor Simon Winlow-Reconsidering Nostalgia: Class, Culture and the Troubles to Come

Dr Rachel Broady -Poverty & Knowledge: Anti-poverty activism as a challenge to epistemic injustice in journalism

Dr Sivamohan Valluvan Class camaraderie beyond the nation: reflections on the politics of resentment, sociability but also pubs

11.45- 1.00-Panel Two – Class and Place-Where Do We Belong -Irish working-class academics

Professor Sheila GaffneyYou use your education against me”Familial Dislocation on the Scaffold to Respectability

Dr Sorca McDonnell- The importance of Voice and story to understand working class experiences of higher education

Dr Marcus Free- On Not Getting Found Out: A Fugitive Class Identity in the Cultural Geography of Irish and British Higher Education

Dr Iona Reilly The change makers: how Irish working class academics are challenging and disrupting dominant discourses in higher education

1.30 -2.45 Panel Three -–Culture from Below: Reclaiming Working-Class Narratives

Fran Lock Poetry and the working class

Dr Katerina Flint-Nicol If the workers realised the power they had...they could change the world. But we never did’ (TJ Ballantyne, The Old Oak): The radical aesthetics of hope and existential crisis of British realism in Ken Loach's, The Old Oak (2023).

3.15-4.30- Panel 4 what would a working-class education look like

Professor Alpesh Maisuria -Class, Culture and UK Parliament.

Professor Lee Elliot Major

Dr Paul O'Connell-'Educate That You May Be Free’: Working Class Self-Emancipation and Political Education

Summing up/Discussion 5.00 – 6.00

Dr Craig Johnston

6.00 onwards – the pub