The Working Class in American Literature: Essays on Blue Collar Identity - Paperback

by John F. Lavelle (Editor), Debbie Lelekis (Editor)

Literary texts are artifacts of their time and ideologies. This book collection explores the working class in American literature from the colonial to the contemporary period through a critical lens which addresses the real problems of approaching class through economics. Significantly, this book moves the analysis of working-class literature away from the Marxist focus on the relationship between class and the means of production and applies an innovative concept of class based on the sociological studies of humans and society first championed by Max Weber. Of primary concern is the construction of class separation through the concept of in-grouping/out grouping. This book builds upon the theories established in John F. Lavelle's Blue Collar, Theoretically: A Post-Marxist Approach to Working Class Literature (McFarland, 2011) and puts them into practice by examining a diverse set of texts that reveal the complexity of class relations in American society.

Author Biography

John F. Lavelle is an associate professor at Florida Tech where he teaches English, literature, and creative writing. He is the author of one other scholarly book and has published articles and papers in academic journals on the interception of class and literature. Debbie Lelekis is an associate professor teaching literature and writing classes at Florida Tech. Her scholarly research focuses on the notion of community in nineteenth and early twentieth century American fiction.