Hostname: page-component-5c6d5d7d68-pkt8n Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-08-25T11:28:30.007Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

They Must Be Represented? Problems in Theories of Working-Class Representation

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Peter Hitchcock
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Most studies of working-class culture are based on a content-oriented approach to class. While such a mode of interpretation is useful to an understanding of working-class expression, it often fails to come to terms with the nature of class as a relation. Although hardly a manifesto, this essay argues for a theoretically nuanced reading of class that takes up the challenge of abstraction in a working-class representation. In a series of examples drawn from fiction, poetry, and film, the argument shows the myth of the disappearance of the working class to be a symptom of current problems in representational aesthetics.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 115 , Issue 1: Special Topic: Rereading Class , January 2000 , pp. 20 - 32
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2000

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Amariglio, Jack, and Callari, Antonio “Marxian Value Theory and the Problem of the Subject.” Fetishism as Cultural Discourse. Ed. Apter, Emily and Pietz, William. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993. 186–216.Google Scholar
Anderson, Carolyn “Diminishing Degrees of Separation: Class Mobility in Movies of the Reagan-Bush Era.” Beyond the Stars 5: Themes and Ideologies in American Popular Film. Ed. Loukides, Paul and Linda, K. Fuller. Bowling Green: Popular, 1996. 141–14.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail Art and Answerability. Trans. Liapunov, Vadim. Ed. Holquist, Michael and Liapunov, . Austin: U of Texas P, 1990.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, Mikhail Toward a Philosophy of the Act. Trans. Liapunov, Vadim. Ed. Liapunov and Holquist, Michael. Austin: U of Texas P, 1993.Google Scholar
Balibar, Etienne “From Class Struggle to Classless Struggle?” Race, Nation. Class: Ambiguous Identities. By Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein. Trans. Chris Turner. New York: Verso, 1991. 153–15.Google Scholar
Balibar, Etienne Masses, Classes, Ideas. Trans. Swenson, James. New York: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Balibar, Etienne The Philosophy of Marx. Trans. Turner, Chris. New York: Verso, 1995.Google Scholar
Barker, Pat The Century's Daughter. London: Virago, 1986.Google Scholar
Berger, John Lilac and Flag. London: Granta, 1990.Google Scholar
Berger, John Once in Europa. New York: Pantheon, 1987.Google Scholar
Berger, John Pig Earth. New York: Pantheon, 1979.Google Scholar
Brassed Off! Dir. Herman, Mark. Perf. Pete Postlethwaite, Tara Fitzgerald, and Ewan McGregor. Miramax, 1996.Google Scholar
Derrida, Jacques Specters of Marx. Trans. Kamuf, Peggy. New York: Routledge, 1994.Google Scholar
Dimock, Wai Chee “Class, Gender, and a History of Metonymy.” Dimock and Gilmore 56–104.Google Scholar
Dimock, Wai Chee, and Gilmore, Michael T., eds Rethinking Class: Literary Studies and Social Formations. New York: Columbia UP, 1994.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry Criticism and Ideology. London: Verso, 1976.Google Scholar
Eagleton, Terry The Ideology of the Aesthetic. London: Blackwell, 1990.Google Scholar
Foley, Barbara Radical Representations. Durham: Duke UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Fox, Pamela Class Fictions: Shame and Resistance in the British Working-Class Novel, 1890-1945. Durham: Duke UP, 1994.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Guha, Ranajit, and Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty, eds Selected Subaltern Studies. New York: Oxford UP, 1988.Google Scholar
Hall, John R., ed Reworking Class. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1997.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, Stuart “The Work of Representation.” Representation: Cultural Representations and Signifying Practices. Ed. Hall. London: Sage, 1997. 13–64.Google Scholar
Hitchcock, Peter “Bakhtin, Marx and Worker Representation: An Architectonics of Answerability.” Face to Face. Ed. Adlam, Carol, Falconer, Rachel, Makhlin, Vitalii, and Renfrew, Alastair. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1997. 81–92.Google Scholar
Holquist, Michael Dialogism. New York: Routledge, 1990.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jordan, Chris “Gender and Class Mobility in Saturday Night Fever and Flashdance.” Journal of Popular Film and Television 24 (1996): 116–11.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Klaus, H. Gustav The Literature of Labor. New York: St. Martin's, 1985.Google Scholar
Kofman, Sarah Camera obscura, de l'idéologie. Paris, Galilée, 1973.Google Scholar
Laclau, Ernesto, and Mouffe, Chantal Hegemony and Socialist Strategy. New York: Verso, 1985.Google Scholar
Levine, Philip “What Work Is.” What Work Is. New York: Knopf, 1991. 18–19.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl Capital. Trans. Fowkes, Ben. Vol. 1. London: Penguin, 1976.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl “Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.” The Marx-Engels Reader. Ed. Robert, C. Tucker. New York: Norton, 1978. 66–125.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy. Ed. Feuer, Lewis. New York: Anchor, 1959. 358–35.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl, and Engels, Friedrich The German Ideology. Trans. Lough, W. Ed. Arthur, C. J. New York: International, 1988.Google Scholar
Marx, Karl Manifesto of the Communist Party. Marx and Engels: Basic Writings on Politics and Philosophy. Ed. Lewis Feuer, New York: Anchor, 1959. 43–82.Google Scholar
Mehlman, Jeffrey Revolution and Repetition: Marx/Hugo/Balzac. Berkeley: U of California P, 1977.Google Scholar
Mitchell, W. J. T Iconology. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 1986.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nekola, Charlotte, and Rabinowitz, Paula, eds Writing Red: An Anthology of American Women Writers, 1930-1940. New York: Feminist, 1987.Google Scholar
Robbins, Bruce The Servian's Hand: English Fiction from Below. Durham: Duke UP, 1993.Google Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty “Can the Subaltern Speak?” Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Ed. Nelson, Cary and Grossberg, Lawrence. Urbana: U of Illinois P, 1988. 271–313.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Spivak, Gayatri Chakravorty “Scattered Speculations on the Question of Value.” In Other Worlds: Essays in Cultural Politics. London: Routledge, 1987. 154–15.Google Scholar
Tokarczyk, Michelle M., and Fay, Elizabeth A. Working-Class Women in the Academy: Laborers in the Knowledge Factory. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P, 1993.Google Scholar
Vološinov, V. N Marxism and the Philosophy of Language. Trans. Matejka, Ladislav and Titunik, I. R. Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1986.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond Culture. London: Fontana, 1981.Google ScholarPubMed
Williams, Raymond Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1976.Google Scholar
Williams, Raymond “Working-Class, Proletarian, Socialist: Problems in Some Welsh Novels.” The Socialist Novel in Britain. Ed. Klaus, H. Gustav. Brighton: Harvester, 1982. 110–11.Google Scholar
Wimsalt, William K., and Beardsley, Monroe C. “The Intentional Fallacy.” Essays in Modern Literary Criticism. Ed. Ray, B. West. New York: Rinehart, 1952. 176–17.Google Scholar
Zandy, Janet, ed Calling Home: Working-Class Women's Writings. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1990.Google Scholar
Zandy, Janet. ed Liberating Memory: Our Work and Our Working-Class Consciousness. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1995.Google Scholar