Re-Imagining Class

Michiel Rys is postdoctoral researcher of the FWO in the Research Unit of Literary Studies and Cultural Studies at KU Leuven. Liesbeth François is teaching associate in the Faculty of Modern and Medieval Languages and Linguistics at the University of Cambridge, and fellow in Spanish at Downing College.

Re-imagining Class not only demonstrates the recent resurgence of interest in class in the humanities and social sciences but confirms that some of the most exciting and necessary current scholarship focuses on the concept. Michiel Rys and Liesbeth François’ wide-ranging collection valuably contributes to efforts to produce more theoretically-sophisticated and internationally-engaged forms of intersectional scholarship, capable of analyzing class, and the position of the working-class in particular, in a neoliberal system in crisis. - Ben Clarke, University of North Carolina, Greensboro

• AcknowledgmentsRe-Imagining Class: Intersectional Perspectives on Class Identity and Precarity in Contemporary Culture Michiel Rys and Liesbeth FrançoisPART 1 REDISCOVERING CLASS: CONTINUITIES AND RUPTURES1.1 Writing (for) the Precariat: Mats Teglund’s Cykelbudet (2021) and Pelle Sunvisson’s Svenska palmen (2021) Magnus Nilsson1.2 Making Visible the Invisible: Spanish Post-Crisis FictionChristian ClaessonPART 2 PERSONALISING CLASS: INDIVIDUALS AND COLLECTIVES2.1 The Poetics of Personal Authenticity: Diversity, Intersectionality and the Working Class in Contemporary German Literature Christoph Schaub2.2 Narrating the Precariat: Social Wounds in Terézia Mora’s and Wilhelm Genazino’s Novels Olaf Berwald2.3 “Know Where to Fish”: Class and Gender Precarity and Project-based Networks in Creative and Cultural Industries Valeria Pulignano, Deborah Dean, Markieta Domecka and Lander VermeerbergenPART 3 NARRATING CLASS: VOICE AND BELONGING3.1 Double(ing) Voices: Narrating Precarious Class Status and Class Identities Sula Textor3.2 Obstacles to Leaving, Problems of Arriving: Gender and Genealogy in Contemporary German Narratives of the Social Climber (Christian Baron, Bov Bjerg, Deniz Ohde, Anke Stelling) Irene Husser3.3 Narrating Class and Classlessness in Contemporary British Novels of Black Women’s Social Climbing Katrin BeckerPART 4 PERFORMING CLASS: MATERIALITY AND AFFECT4.1 Affected by Discomfort: Class and Precarity in Twenty- First Century Theatre Marissia Fragkou4.2 The Redundancy: Playing Production in Academic Capitalism Sarah Pogoda4.3 “The View Is Nice, but You Can’t Eat It”: A Poetics of Precarity in Bait (2019, Dir: Mark Jenkin) Daniel BrookesPART 5 CLASS BEYOND THE HUMAN: WORK EXPERIENCES AND THE ANTHROPOCENE5.1 Bare Land: Alienation as Deracination in Anna Tsing and John Steinbeck Tim Christiaens5.2 Interspecies Storytelling for Prudent Predation Joeri Verbesselt and Syaman RaponganList of Contributors