Class

Ulrika Holgersson is an associate professor of history at the Department of History, Lund University, Sweden. She is a cultural and gender historian, with media and popular culture as specific areas of expertise. Her publications include Popular Culture and Classification. The Discourses of Work, Class, and Gender in Swedish Women’s Magazines at the Beginning of the Twentieth Century (2005) and The Servant Maid and the Feature Film. Stars of the Swedish ’Folkhem’ of the 1930s and 40s (2016).

"Holgersson’s book makes an ideal introduction to a complex subject for students of both history and sociology. It combines lucid summaries of classic theories of class and of the postmodern debate about discursive construction with vivid examples from contemporary popular culture and original observations about class and gender." Professor Peter Burke, Emmanuel College Cambridge "Class does not go away, it only changes name and form. This book recognises this handsomely. It is lively, accessible, and thoughtful in equal measure. It moves with the times, and therefore does justice to the changed times of class,revisiting old themes in a new way and opening up much new ground." Patrick Joyce, Emeritus Professor of History, University of Manchester, Honorary Professor, University of Edinburgh and Visiting Research Fellow, Trinity College Dublin

• 1. Introduction: Class—Why and How?1.1. From Singapore to Sweden1.2. The world after die Wende1.3. Class—some fundamental distinctions1.4. Class is dead, long live class1.5. Feminist critiques1.6. The cultural turn1.7. The purpose of this booksReferences 2. Construction: The Grand Narrative of Class 2.1. The etymology of class2.2. Class as conflict2.3. Who were Marx and Engels?2.4. The development of capitalist society2.5. Historical materialism2.6. Marxism after Marx2.7. Class as situation2.8. Who was Weber?2.9. Class types2.10. Class rather than status2.11. Weberianism after Weber 2.12. Class and hegemony2.13. Class and structuralism2.14. Class just happens2.15. Quantifying class2.16. Feminist critiques of Marxism2.17. Engels and Marxist feminism2.18. Socialist radical feminism2.19. Anti-racist class analysis and class critiques2.20. The Birmingham School2.21. The whiteness of the working classSummaryReferences 3. Deconstruction: The Class Narrative Dismantled3.1. Postmodern life3.2. A postmodern working class3.3. Postmodern critiques from the left or the right?3.4. Jean-François Lyotard and postmodernism as narrative critique3.5. Jean Baudrillard and the end of society and politics 3.6. Zygmunt Bauman and postmodernism as a state of mind 3.7. Once upon a time classes existed, and they mattered …3.8. Beyond left and right?SummaryReferences4. Reconstruction: New Narratives About Class4.1. Who were the workers?4.2. The languages of class4.3. Gareth Stedman Jones and the challenges of working-class history4.4. Joan W. Scott and post-structuralist feminism4.5. Patrick Joyce, postmodernism, and the crisis of social history4.6. Post-Marxism4.7. Class positions and forms of capital4.8. Pierre Bourdieu’s theory of class4.9. Beverley Skeggs’s feminist analysis of BourdieuSummaryReferences5 Conclusions: Class Analysis, Past and Future5.1. Class as classification, or, where to start5.2. Class, a question of recognition and redistributionReferencesAppendix: Dictionary definitions of classIndex