About the course

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.

Course content

Syllabus autumn 2024

Earlier syllabuses

Entry requirements and selection

Entry requirements

General entry requirements + English 6

Selection

Upper secondary grades 34%, University credits completed 32%, Swedish Scholastic Aptitude Test (SweSAT) 34%

Course literature

  • Coles, Nicholas and Paul Lauter. 2017. A History of American Working-Class Literature. Cambridge UP. 1–7, 232–263 and 376–405.
  • Clark, Ben and Nick Hubble. Introduction. In Working-Class Writing: Theory and Practice. Palgrave McMillan. 1–6. [copies will be provided]
  • Karlsson, Mats. 2016. The Proletarian Literature Movement: Experiment and Experience. In Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature. Routledge. 111–124. [copies will be provided]
  • Mkhize, Jabulani. 2010. Shades of Working-Class Writing: Realism and the
  • Intertextual in La Guma's ‘In the Fog of the Seasons' End. Shades of Working-Class Writing: Realism and the Intertextual in La Guma's ‘In the Fog of the Seasons' End. 36.4 [available through the University Library’s webpage]
  • Lennon, John and Magnus Nilsson (eds.). 2017 Working-Class Literature(s): Historical and International Perspectives. Stockholm UP. https://doi.org/10.16993/bam [can be downloaded for free]
  • Nilsson. Magnus. 2019. ”Working-class comics? Proletarian self-reflexiveness in Mats Källblad’s graphic novel Hundra år i samma klass.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 10.3 https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2018.1500383
  • Nilsson, Magnus. 2014. Literature and Class: Aesthetical-Political Strategies in Modern Swedish Working-Class Literature. Humboldt-Universität. 18–26 and 115–158. [copies will be provided]
  • Nilsson, Magnus and John Lennon. 2016. “Defining Working-Class Literature(s): A Comparative Approach Between U.S. Working-Class Studies and Swedish Literary History.” New Proposals 8.2, pp 39–61.
  • https://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/newproposals/article/view/186076
  • Perera, Sonali. 2014. No Country: Working-Class Writing in the Age of Globalization. Columbia UP. Pp. 1–19.
  • Pierse, Michael (ed.) 2017. A History of Irish Working-Class Writing. Cambridge UP. Pp. 1–36.
  • Tenngart, paul. 2019. “The Dislocated Vernacular in Translated Swedish Working-Class Fiction.” https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2019.1659171
  • Tenngart, Paul. 2016. “Local Labour, Cosmopolitan Toil: Geo-Cultural Dynamics in Swedish Working-Class Fiction.” Journal of World Literature 1.4, pp. 484–502. https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00104001
  • Tokarczyk, Michell M. (ed.) 2011. Critical Approaches to American Working-Class Literature. Routledge. Pp. 1–13
  • Wright, Rochelle. 1996. “Literature Democratized: Working-Class Writers of the 1930s”. In Lars G. Warme (ed.), A History of Swedish Literature. U of Nebraska P. Pp. 333–346.

Additional literature encompassing 200 pages may be added.

Fiction

Fictional works will be chosen by the students.

Course evaluation

Higher education institutions shall enable students who are participating in or have completed a course to express their experiences of and views on the course through a course evaluation to be organised by the higher education institution. The higher education institution shall collate the course evaluations and provide information about their results and any actions prompted by the course evaluations. The results shall be made available to the students (Higher Education Ordinance, Chapter 1 Section 14).

Malmö Mixed-time 50%

Contact

For more information about the education:

K3student@mau.se

This education is provided by

Faculty of Culture and Society

At the Faculty of Culture and Society, research and education concerns many of the major issues of our time – for example those...

School of Arts and Communication

At the School of Arts and Communication (K3), we work with interdisciplinary education and research in media, culture and...