Working-Class Literature - Historical and International Perspectives

Working-class literature brings to the fore questions of vital importance for understanding not only contemporary society, but also global historical developments during the last 150 years, such as class, power, representation, culture, and work. During this course, you will get the opportunity to study working-class literatures from different periods and contexts from a historical and international perspective. We will focus on this literature’s relationship to both social phenomena and literary developments from the nineteenth century until today.
The first part of the course is an introduction to the concept of working-class literature, with a focus on how it has been used in different ways in different contexts. Thereafter, working-class literatures from different countries – such as Sweden, Japan, South Africa, and the U.S. – are studied and compared. During the final part of the course, you will make an in-depth study of works and themes that you find especially interesting.
The course literature contains contemporary research about working-class literature, written by leading scholars from all over the world, and you will get the opportunity to interact with several of them, as well as with students from various places with different backgrounds and interests. The course is given entirely on-line, and can be combined with work or other studies.