SPECTRES OF CLASS: CLASS: OF SPECTRES

Representing Social Class from the French Revolution to the Present

University of Chester, UK • 15 - 16 July 2011

Conference Programme, Abstracts, GeNeral Information Spectres of Class: Representing Social Class from the French Revolution to the Present 15 / 16 July 2011 English Department, Faculty of Humanities, University of Chester

Welcome to the Spectres of Class bonuses, royal weddings, and governments conference 2011 organised by members dominated by privileged elites on the one of the English Department at the hand, and mass redundancies, rising energy University of Chester. As you can see bills and in the worst case, catastrophic from the programme, we have two days famine on the other. of broad-ranging, thought-provoking, interdisciplinary talks to look forward to. Explaining the roots of these tensions is an Whilst many of us are experts in a diverse intellectual minefield and also an ideological range of academic fields – such as literary battleground. For instance, Professor Mike studies, linguistics, history, sociology, Savage, who heads up the BBC Great British media studies and social anthropology – Class Survey, points out that the labels what brings us together for this two-day ‘working’, ‘middle’ and ‘upper’ class which event is our shared interest in social class. first appeared in the 19th century as a way of classifying social differences stemming One of our original aims was to make a from Britain’s role in the industrial revolution, modest contribution to bringing social class may not be quite as simplistic today. - as a significant force in the ways human However, these categories are still deeply beings are divided by structural inequalities rooted in the discourse of how we categorise - back onto the academic agenda. both ourselves and others because social divisions have never gone away. So However, in a sense, events have overtaken undoubtedly, amongst the key questions us, with matters of class being a central up for debate at the conference will be the topic of debate in the public domain in relevance of class both as symptomatic of the recent period. It is no coincidence objective economic relations and as a badge that the BBC have chosen this year to call of identity. The Spectres of Class conference upon sociologists to help them conduct therefore provides a forum for exploring research into social class with their Great how class has been represented in language, British Class Survey, and that Owen Jones’ literature and other cultural formations recently published provocative book Chavs: since the French Revolution, and seeks to The Demonization of the Working Class understand the historical basis of class has caused a stir in the national UK press. identities and their manifestations today. With global recession and natural disaster Your contribution to this debate is deeply dominating the news media, the divisions appreciated. We know that some of you have between those with and without economic, travelled a considerable distance and we social and cultural capital are becoming thank you for participating in this event either ever starker. We’ve stories of bankers’ as a speaker or a visitor.

3 Our thanks go also to: the University of undergraduate student volunteers – Hannah Chester’s Research and Knowledge Transfer Parcell and Tom Jackson – who have taken Accommodation Office, especially Dr Mark Helsdon, for their time out of their summer holiday to help the advice and financial support towards research conference run smoothly; Prof Chris Walsh, Delegates staying overnight on campus will be located in John Milton Hall (no.33 for one of the papers being delivered at the Head of English for his moral support; Prof on the campus map). Please ensure you vacate your bedroom by 9.30am and hand conference; Graphic Designer Gary Martin Rob Warner, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities your key to Matt Davies or Deborah Wynne (conference organisers) or one of the for crafting and constantly updating the eye- for opening the conference and Jen, Karen student volunteers. For those leaving Sunday morning, could you please leave catching posters and leaflets; Sarah Steele in and Lucy in the English Department office for your key at the Porters’ Lodge by the main Exton Park entrance. Marketing and Gemma Sproston in Corporate their administrative support. Communications for helping to promote Breakfast for delegates staying on campus is served between 7.45 – 9.00 in White’s the conference; staff in the university’s And finally thanks to you all for attending Dining Room. This is included in the registration fee. Conference Office; English post-graduate the conference. We hope your stay at the students Ali Hutchinson and Anna Mackenzie University of Chester is a pleasant one. Computers and Internet Access for their enthusiastic input in the lead-up to the conference; all those who have agreed Dr Matt Davies and Professor Deborah Delegates will have access to the open-access computer laboratory on the ground to chair sessions; our English Language Wynne (conference organisers) floor of theBinks Building, opposite the lift doors.

To log in you need to use the following details which will enable you to use all the General Information computer facilities, including internet:

Venue Username: conf14 Password: eng2011 All conference sessions will take place in the Beswick Building situated in the centre of the Chester Campus (no.10 on the campus map). The plenary talks will Transport take place in CBE013 (small lecture theatre). The parallel sessions will be held in CBE013 and CBE001. The registration desk will be in the main foyer of the Beswick The main Chester rail station is a 15-20 minute walk from the main campus. Building and staffed from 1400 - 1700 Thursday, 08.45 – 18.30 on Friday and 08.45 Delegates requiring taxis can call either King Cabs on (01244) 343434 or Radio –17.30 on Saturday. There will be a secure room (CBE017) to leave luggage and Taxis on (01244) 372372. Ask to be picked up from outside the Binks Building or, other valuables. alternatively, at the main entrance to the University of Chester, the ‘Exton Park entrance/Porters’ Lodge’. Food and Refreshments

Please note that all food and refreshments are included in the registration fee.

Morning and afternoon refreshments will be available in CBE001/3+4. The Friday lunch is a buffet which is also in CBE001/3+4. The Friday evening dinner and the Saturday lunch will be in White’s Dining Hall (turn left out of Beswick and walk a few yards). A bar will be available for Friday evening drinkers in the Students’ Union Bar behind White’s Dining Hall.

Delegates wishing to purchase refreshments outside of the scheduled break times can make use of Binks Brasserie (open 9am – 5pm), just inside the Binks Building main entrance (turn right out of Beswick and walk a few metres).

4 5 Spectres of Class John Gray Paul Vlitos University of East , UK University of Surrey, UK conference programme Celebrity, social class and the ‘There’s a-goin’ to be a Feast’: (Beswick Building, Chester Campus) neoliberal imperative – the case of Dining and Social Difference in the ELT textbooks. Novels of . Friday 15th July Duncan Stone, Elizabeth Negus University of Huddersfield, UK Barking and Dagenham College, UK 8.45am Registration open (Beswick foyer) Regional Cricket Identities: The Dickens and Medicine: Health construction of class narratives and Inequalities are Merely a Reflection 9.45 – 10.00 Rob Warner, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities (CBE013) their relationship to contemporary of Wealth and Income Inequalities. Introduction and welcome supporters. 10.00 -11.00 Professor Paul Kerswill (University of Lancaster, UK) (CBE013) Joe Stroud Maryam Beyad Language, social class and identity University of Edinburgh, UK University of Tehran, Iran Chair: Matt Davies When does Folk become Fascist? Far from the Madding Crowd 11.00- 11.30 Refreshments (CBE001/3+4) The class-bound discourse of folk music. 11.30 –1.00 CLASS, IDENTITY AND REGION GENDER AND CLASS (CBE001/3+4) (CBE013) 4.00 – 4.30 Refreshments (CBE001/3+4) Chair: Brian Walker Chair: Alex Tankard 4.30 – 5.30 CLASS AND HEGEMONY IN THE CLASS AND VISUALITY IN THE Hugh Escott, Shannon O’Hara MEDIA NINETEENTH CENTURY University of Sheffield, UK University of St Andrews, UK (CBE001/3+4) (CBE013) Dialect and Class in the Picket-Line A Question of Class: Representing Chair: Matt Davies Chair: Deborah Wynne Poetry of Tom Hague / Totley Tom’ Rapists in Contemporary Literature. Roberto Lestinge & Sandra Lestinge Vera Prescott Thomas Kew Emily Dickinson University of Sao Paolo, Brazil University of Lisbon, Portugal University of Nottingham, UK Loughborough University, UK Sugarcane, ethanol and Lovely, wretched peasants: ‘What About Di Workin Claas”: Representation of class and landowners in Brazil: A Critical Pastoral and Anti-Pastoral Images Performing Class in Linton Kwesi violence in Dorothy Allison’s Discourse Analysis of class, in Nineteenth-Century Naturalist Johnson’s Brixton. Bastard Out of Carolina. ideology and power hegemony. Literature and Visual Arts. Michael Pace-Sigge Martyn Colebrook, M.S. Abdullahi-Idiagbon, Emma Newey University of Liverpool, UK University of Hull, UK University of Ilorin, Nigeria University of Chester, UK The Liverpool Speaker as an Power, Pornography, Class and Ideology in Nigerian ‘Constructing Class Through example to connect socio-economic Fragmentation and Disintegration: Political Campaigns - A Critical Fabric: The Social Life of the concepts to the externalities of 1982, Janine and the trial of Jock Discourse Analysis of President Corset’. Priming. McLeish Jonathan’s Campaign Advert. BUFFET LUNCH (CBE001/3+4) 5.30 – 6.30 Dr Colin Coulter (National University of Ireland, Maynooth) (CBE013) 2.00 – 4.00 CLASS, CONSUMERISM AND NINETEENTH-CENTURY LITERARY POPULAR CULTURE REPRESENTATIONS OF CLASS ‘In the days when you were hopelessly poor, I just liked you (CBE001/3+4) (CBE013) more’: Spectres of class in the songs of The Smiths Chairs: Pat Barlow & Val Price Chair: Yvonne Siddle Chair: Sara Whiteley Oliver Peterson Gilbert Veronica Hoyt 7.00 DINNER and BAR (till 1am) King’s College, London, UK University of Canterbury, New White’s Dining Hall & Students’ Union Bar Theodore Adorno’s ‘Culture Industry Zealand - ‘The Menace posed by organised Crossing the Class Divide? Roses mankind to organised men’. in the fiction of Elizabeth Gaskell.

6 7 Saturday 16th July 12.30 – 1.00 To be announced (CBE013) 1.00 – 2.00 LUNCH (White’s Dining Hall) 8.45am Registration open (Beswick foyer) 2.00 – 3.30 CLASS IN TWENTIETH CENTURY CLASS AND CONFLICT 9.30 -11.00 CLASS AND THE MIDDLE-EAST REPRESENTATIONS OF CLASS IN LITERATURE (CBE013) (CBE001/3+4) THE UK PRESS (CBE001/3+4) Chair: Louisa Yates Chair: Anna Mackenzie (CBE013) Chair: Deborah Wynne Chair: Melissa Fegan James Bernthal Katharine Easterby, Mersedeh Dadmohammadi Brian Walker & Lesley Jeffries University of Exeter, UK University of Liverpool, UK University of Chester, UK University of Huddersfield, UK Agatha Christie, money and the Playing Pooter: A Winnicottian Examining the variety of social Class in Blair’s classless society: missing class. reading of George and and classes with reference to the A critical corpus-based analysis ’s The Diary of Islamic background represented in of the representations of class in a Nobody. contemporary Iranian Society print news reporting during the Blair years. Sally West Ingrid Hanson University of Chester, UK University of Sheffield, UK Katayoon Afzali, Matt Davies & Olga Mudraya Naughty Apartments and Class war and the myth of Sheikbahaee University, Iran Whitehouse Disappearing Cities: The sacrificial violence in William The address forms of spouses in University of Chester, UK Subversion of Space in Mikhail Morris’s A Dream of John Ball. different social strata in Iran and its Class struggle denied?: How the Bulgakov’s The Master and sociolinguistic implications. UK press demonize workers on Margarita. strike. Jen Davis Melissa Fegan, Irmak Karademir Hazir, Argyro Kantara, University of Chester, UK University of Chester, UK University of Manchester, UK & Freelance Researcher, Greece ‘Sweet Afton’: a thing theory Spectres of Hunger: The Famine in Middle East Technical University, Who won in Seattle? Critical reading of class-inflected objects in contemporary Irish Literature. Turkey Discourse Analysis of two articles Angela Carter’s early work’ Class, Culture and Symbolic that appeared in the British press Boundaries: A case study on the on December 1999 concerning the 3.30 – 4.00 Refreshments (CBE001/3+4) Turkish middle class. future of globalisation. 4.00 – 5.00 Dr Ruth Livesey (Royal Holloway, University of London, UK) 11.00 – 11.30 Refreshments (CBE001/3+4) (CBE013) 11.30 – 12.30 THE POETICS OF HISTORY AND THEORISING CLASS Class, Mobility, and the Tory Nation: Passengers on the CLASS (CBE013) Move in the Nineteenth Century (CBE001/3+4) Chair: Jen Davis Chair: Deborah Wynne Chair: Sally West 5.00 – 5.15 Conference Close Aishah Al-Shatti, Andrew Sayer Kuwait University University of Lancaster, UK The poet in Mary Robinson’s Urban Class in 21st Century Britain: Poetry. symbolic struggles and structural reproduction. Steve Van-Hagen Jack Windle Edge Hill University, UK University of Sheffield, UK ‘Did Whitfield, or did Wesley Theorising Race and Class. lounge at ease / Their pride to pamper, or their flesh to please?’: Methodism, Equalitarian Theology and Class in James Woodhouse’s The Life and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus (c.1795).

8 9 Plenary Lectures working-class people in London: here, a described as the ‘hidden injuries’ of late and its well-being. Whilst Morris grappled favoured term is ‘posh’, referring to people capitalism. This preoccupation with the with Marx, Carlyle and Ruskin were happy Language, social class and identity unlike themselves. Ethnicity, however, injustices and indignities faced by working to proclaim themselves the peculiar Professor Paul Kerswill, University of has become central to perceptions. In the class people lends the songs of The Smiths amalgam of violent Toryism and the reddest Lancaster, UK relatively monoethnic ‘Anglo’ outer city, a critical edge that in turn gives them a of revolutionaries. This paper explores the Friday 15th July, 10am, CBE013 the inner city is perceived as inhabited distinctly contemporary resonance. In view investment in localism and regional identity by non-white people, with a distinctive of the radical credentials of the band, it is that I argue underpins this Tory/Radical Seeking links between language and language. In the inner city itself, the hardly surprising that the culture industries conjunction: a localism that substitutes social class has been ‘around’ since language of non-white and white people and political establishment alike have an organic relation of individuals for an at least the beginning of the twentieth alike has been recast as the new, authentic sought to housetrain The Smiths, initiating analysis of class. I take as my case study century: one of the pioneers of what is voice of London’s working class, displacing them into the canon of ‘classic’ artists while the visual and literary culture surrounding now called sociolinguistics, the Norwegian Cockney, which, like ‘posh’, is the language seeking to airbrush their politics out of the the transition from the fast stage and mail Amund B. Larsen, wrote that the ‘genuine of ‘others’. picture. coaches which had underpinned a national vernacular’ of Oslo could be found in its network of local communications from purest form among inmates in the city’s ‘In the days when you were Class, Mobility, and the Tory the 1780s to the ‘modern’ railway era. prison, while more ‘refined’ speech could hopelessly poor, I just liked you Nation: Passengers on the Move in The mail coach became associated with be heard in Oslo’s West End. This early more’: Spectres of class in the the Nineteenth Century displays of patriotism and British national study does not theorise class, though songs of The Smiths Dr Ruth Livesey, Royal Holloway, identity in early nineteenth century through there is an implicit polarisation of the Dr Colin Coulter, National University of University of London, UK the iconography of annual mail coach speech repertoire which is compatible with Ireland, Maynooth Saturday 16th July, 4pm, CBE013 processions and the commemoration of a quasi-Marxian conflict model. Taking a Friday 15th July, 5.30pm, CBE013 the mails in sporting prints. In the writings polarising approach to social structure did What does a Tory view of class look like? of Thomas De Quincey and other Tories, not, however, become the mainstream In the last decade, there has been a At the present moment in Britain, when the coach symbolises a means of social in sociolinguistics, at least not in the kind remarkable resurgence of interest in the leaders of all political parties generate connection and the mingling of the upper of ‘social dialectology’ pursued by the the seminal 1980’s Manchester band ever more anodyne phrases – such as the and middling orders on the road. With American William Labov since the 1960s. The Smiths. The songs that Morrissey infamous ‘squeezed middle’ - to avoid its simple division between ‘inside’ and Labov was heavily influenced by the and Marr wrote with, and occasionally the ‘c’ word, uncovering the long view of ‘outside’ passengers the coach is a vehicle to functionalist views of Talcott Parsons, who for, one another famously deal with the this resistance to the language of class is speak of the nation as one united by interest saw class as a hierarchical system. Labov, complexities of gender and sexuality. It particularly important. This paper takes a and sensibility, rather than differentiated and his British successor Peter Trudgill, might be argued, however, that these journey back to the middle-decades of the by class. With the rise of the railways applied a fine-grained social stratification compositions dealt more frequently nineteenth century and explores the resilient from the 1830s, I suggest, an association to the analysis of the use of particular and more critically with another form (and resolutely anti-intellectual) strand emerges between the figuring of the coach vowel qualities and consonant articulations of subjectivity. The songs of The Smiths of Toryism that survived the emergence and ideas of regional identity and Tory – and, remarkably, found a perfect match. articulate a particular and profoundly of modern Conservatism and retained nationhood: never merely nostalgic, such Later studies, particularly in England and ambivalent sense of what it means to its own sort of radicalism. It was (and, I writing imagines an alternative modernity Scotland, have returned to a bipolar model, be working class. While workers are suggest, still remains) a radicalism that to Whig ideas of liberal progress and unified this time theorising the decision in terms recurrently venerated as the indomitable cannot countenance social class a means national improvement. If the railway station of class cultures. Class is seen as a ‘way bearers of a virtue that bourgeois society to describe the nation – associated as the and its segregated compartments mapped of being’, albeit essentially founded on cannot recognise, they are at the same terms of class are with the rationalising a legible tripartite modern class system – as socioeconomic inequality, but still guiding time depicted as the hapless and helpless abstractions of progressive liberalism. Some my analysis of William Powell Frith’s 1862 people’s identities and aspirations. In my victims of a social order that trades of the fiercest critics of nineteenth-century painting will suggest – then the stagecoach lecture, I will present a new quantitative in humiliation. In his lyrics and in his capitalism – Thomas Carlyle, John Ruskin, imaginary provides a counter-narrative of and qualitative analysis of perceptions of interviews Morrissey would return time and even William Morris – owed the roots local affections. different types of language among young and again to what Sennett and Cobb once of their protest to Tory ideas of the nation

10 11 Abstracts its elite circles, the writer has become uses money in representing her own class, society prevents individuals from rising present yet invisible, contributing to and explore the purpose and effect of the above their class, therefore a denial of Katayoon Afzali the cultural output of the city, and at absence of the working class. The received university, as in the case of Jude, is one Sheikhbahaee University, Iran the same time, marginalized because opinion that Christie’s novels serve only of the main attractions of his works. The address forms of spouses in of the increased commercialization of to enforce a Burkean conservatism, while Family relationships, individuals versus different social strata in Iran and the book market. This is an interesting acknowledging and lamenting its loss, society, traditions versus modern are its sociolinguistic implications depiction from Mary Robinson given will be challenged. I will consider her own themes often used by other novelists too, her high public profile: invisibility is class as microcosmic and ask whether but in the case of Hardy, the architecture The current study aims to investigate something that she certainly knew the absence of the other is less damaging of his novels reflect certain uniqueness. different terms that spouses apply in nothing about and her life was to a large than the current media’s approach to The Wessex setting adds to the sense of order to address each other in different extent overshadowed by circulating “chavs” and “hoodies”. isolation and depravity. In this paper I social strata in Iran and to discuss what representations of different facets of would like to discuss Thomas Hardy, as these patterns reflect about the power herself. Then what is exactly troubling Maryam Beyad a leading novelist of the 19th century, and solidarity relationships of spouses Robinson about the writer’s invisibility University of Tehran, Iran who depicted the struggle for life in a in the present society of Iran. To this in the great metropolis? What are the Far from the Madding Crowd manner that showed the 19th century as end, using a social class questionnaire, connections Robinson is trying to make a live cinema. Two of his works will be 97 participants were stratified to upper- between the writer and members of Despite a new found freedom in the discussed - Jude the Obscure and Mayor middle, middle and lower-middle classes trade? And how does her depiction of political and economic sphere, the of Casterbridge, within the context of and then the patterns used by them were the invisible poet converse with other 19th century individual experienced a class struggle. specified. Analysing the data suggests traditional and emerging images of the sense of isolation and fragmentation. that Iran’s religious and patriarchal society poet from the eighteenth century. These They yearned for the past which at Martyn Colebrook play important roles in the way that are some of the questions that I will least held everybody together even University of Hull, UK spouses address each other. Furthermore, address in my paper. if it was under a rigid feudal system. Power, pornography, it suggests that with the increase of A sense of community and belonging fragmentation and disintegration: educated and working women, the James Bernthal was permanently lost. In essence, 1982, Janine and the trial of Jock relationship between spouses is moving University of Exeter, UK there was a struggle for existence, the McLeish. towards solidarity; however, power has Agatha Christie: money and the weaker individuals were crushed, and found new ways to manifest itself. missing class the stronger individuals lived on. It Nowadays Britain is OF NECESSITY was man’s struggle for existence which organised like a bad adolescent Aishah Al-Shatti Agatha Christie wrote her most popular dominated Hardy’s thoughts; he was fantasy (Gray 139) Kuwait University detective stories in the 1930s and 1940s deeply influenced by Darwin’s view The Poet in Mary Robinson’s at a time of economic instability and on the matter. In his Origin of Species, A novel condemned upon publication Urban Poetry criticized class divisions. Today, her Darwin explains his theory of the for a central metaphor that compares work is still successful, and her sales development of species by means of Scotland’s political situation to that of In her urban poem “London’s Summer are increasing, in a country emerging variation and the survival of the fittest an abused woman; some readers have Morning” and in her last article published from recession and with controversy through natural selection. Darwinism considered Gray’s literary depictions of in The Monthly Magazine, “Present surrounding “hug a hoodie” campaigns and evolutionary thoughts are quite women to be ‘pornographic’. Throughout State of the Manners”, Robinson gives a and the label “chav”. Christie has been apparent in Hardy’s works. The genius 1982, Janine Gray uses explicit language topographical and cultural survey of the derided for appearing to focus on her of Hardy lies in the fact that although and sexual images to make a clear literary scene in London. In these works own class closing in on itself, with merely his novels are supposedly regional connection between the personal and she illustrates the writer’s precarious stock or functional characters from the with many autobiographical elements, political. Alasdair Gray’s novel represents position as a result of the rise of print lower classes. By approaching three yet there is something universal about a controversial and divisive assessment of culture in the late eighteenth century. of her novels from a politicized queer his themes, his characters and their gender, class and identity. Although Gray’s Being part of the city, yet sidelined from perspective, I will consider how Christie obscure lives. Hardy’s specification that novels are all too often described as

12 13 ‘political’, the question that is all too often Mersedeh Dadmohammadi examine the Islamic coverage of Iranian are mapped into their potential semantic overlooked is just which politics do his University of Chester, UK social classes, I will refer to three different categories. The software then allows us to novels engage with. In 1982, Janine Gray An examination of the variety of films, each representing a different social see key words and semantic categories investigates the alternating pornographic social classes with reference to the class with a distinctive mode of religion: as judged against another corpus, in this and political imaginings of Jock MacLeish Islamic background represented case the BNC (British National Corpus). to strip away those fabrications and in contemporary Iranian society 1) Persepolis... the Marxist definition of Our results so far show that consistent reveal the identity crisis that plagues Jock. and how class relates to modes of class in a capitalist society. key semantic categories include ‘violent/ Gray’s is “a voice that took for granted it religion 2) A Time for Drunken Horses.... class angry’, and ‘damaging/destroying’ for the wasn’t the only voice,” Janice Galloway of petty bourgeoisie due to the 2010 strikes. We undertake a qualitative explains. “From its own experience of Contemporary Iranian society is facing capitalist economic situation of Iran. exploration of the context of keywords marginalization (and they are multiple), it unprecedented internal and external 3) Gold and copper as a typical middle in these categories to show for instance knew the whole truth didn’t belong to one challenges regarding globalization and post class. how the press consistently stigmatize sex either. In short, it was a man’s voice modernity. Entering the third decade of strikers and trade unions by focussing on that knew that’s all it was—a man’s” (195). the Islamic revolution of 1979, the Iranian Matt Davies & Olga Mudraya-Whitehouse ‘disruption’, ‘chaos’, ‘fears of intimidation’, 1982, Janine interrogates class-based people are struggling in their confrontations University of Chester, UK ‘public suffering’, ‘bloated public sector’ gender representation, the electronic with enormous cultural and social dilemmas Class struggle denied?: how the and so on. We explore the possibility that media and the complicity between the two as they are re-inventing traditional society UK press demonize workers on the negative representations of those in their depiction of the female subject, with a modern one. A dramatic absolute strike taking industrial action to defend their in this instance through Jock’s work as a rise of Islamic conducts occurred in Iran in livelihoods is a consistent strategy aimed security guard, the cameras he oversees the first post-revolutionary decade due to This is part of an ongoing study to at disguising the class interests of the and the subject of his fantasies; the the Shah’s authoritarianism and repression investigate the linguistic techniques employers / government whose long- ubiquitous ‘Janine’. Here the “tyranny of of the ulama, and the rush of modernism, employed by participants in and reporters term aim is to promote the private over the visual image as a mimetic device is which made ordinary Iranians more, not of industrial conflicts in the UK, to the public sector and maintain unequal paralleled in the exploration of structures less, religious. The “structural involution” promote their particular point of view. This economic power relations between of power”(99). In 1982, Janine, Gray of Iran’s economic system caused by the particular talk focuses on to what extent employers and employees. problematises rigid gender distinctions Islamic revolution transformed the class and how the national UK press demonize and social roles by creating a far more system by “identifying winners and losers” workers who withdraw their labour in Jen Davis complex and convincing literary picture of in terms of their economic power. The order to protect their pay and conditions. University of Chester, UK human subjectivity, radical in its critique reconstruction of the economy in a new We use two corpora - 138,000 words of Sweet Afton: a thing theory of patriarchy and its implications for Islamic direction could be considered as an news stories, editorial columns, opinion reading of class-inflected objects understanding gender and class. 1982, influential tendency in relating the notion of articles and features from 20 – 24 March in Angela Carter’s early work Janine shares preoccupations of Gray’s class to Iranian society. 2010 based on the dispute between British first novel, Lanark, which, according to Airways Management and BA cabin crew, Thing theory addresses the way in which Alison Lee, is primarily concerned with, The overall impact of the previous and 64,000 words of the same from 29 things can be said to constitute identity, “structures of power, from familial, regime’s policies made the upper and the June – 1 July 2011 on the reporting of a including class identity. Extrapolating governmental and corporate control, to new middle class become increasingly one-day national strike of teachers and from social anthropologist Daniel Miller’s the manipulation of the reader and the westernized and scarcely understood the civil servants. The aim is to compare study of material culture, Stuff, this character’. Politicised spacialization in traditional or religious culture of their and contrast the extent to which the UK reading transposes his ‘system of things’ Gray’s work is explored throughout this compatriots. On the other hand, peasants press utilise othering strategies against into a methodology for literary enquiry. paper. and urban bazaar classes continued to workers in these two strikes, before and A reading of things in literary narratives follow the ulama, however politically during the Conservative-Liberal coalition reveals a dialectic of character and object cowed the ulama were. These classes era. We have input data into the WMatrix that releases new layers of meaning. A associated the way things should be - corpus software processing tool in which thing theory reading of objects in Angela more with Islam than with the West. To single words and multiword expressions Carter’s early writing will demonstrate the

14 15 2 See Donald Winnicott, Playing and Reality constitution of characters’ class identities. Katharine Easterby (London: Tavistock Publications, 1971). dialect usage as not only a member of Miller’s description of the way that University of Liverpool, UK the working-classes but as a member of 3 Laurence Porter, in his analysis of J. K. consistent interaction with things forms Playing Pooter: A Winnicottian Huysmans’ decadent novel A Rebours (1884), the mining-class; what Hague achieves an individual’s perception of cultural Reading of George and Weedon has labelled aestheticism, that is, accumulating when he translates Heath’s speech norms informs this reading of objects Grossmith’s and being fascinated by art objects, a form into Sheffield dialect; the effects of in Angela Carter’s early work. A detailed of play. See ‘Huysmans’ “A rebours”: The positioning a poem within the framework Psychodynamics of Regression’ by Laurence M. interrogation of the objects surrounding George and Weedon Grossmith’s satire of of a class-war and how this appeals to Porter, American Imago, 44 (1987), 51-65. characters in the novels Shadow Dance the middle classes The Diary of a Nobody the ideals of the miners as a political and The Magic Toyshop renders details was serialized in Punch (1888-89) and the Hugh Escott group; the reasons behind Hague’s choice about their class backgrounds and revised book version published in 1892. The University of Sheffield, UK to write a poem entirely in dialect; and aspirations that inform, and sometimes existence of fictional diarist , Dialect and Class in the Picket-Line finally to explore the relevance of Richard disturb, conventional readings. a clerk living in a London suburb, has been Poetry of Tom Hague/Totley Tom Hoggart’s idea that the main motivation described as “the epitome of ordinariness”.1 of working-class art is realism and in Emily Dickinson The main protagonist is torn between This paper will explore the use of dialect what ways Hague’s dialect usage adheres Loughborough University, UK a desire to adopt the role of archetypal as a class marker, and dialect as a marker to this. Representation of class and late-nineteenth-century, middle-class for the perceived characteristic cultural violence in Dorothy Allison’s man, and a wish to express an individual values of the working and middle-classes, Melissa Fegan Bastard Out of Carolina identity through play. The irony is that this in the poetry of Tom Hague. Tom Hague University of Chester, UK conflict is itself characteristically bourgeois. (1915-1998), also known as Totley Tom, Spectres of Hunger: The Famine in My paper will look at the representation Indeed, much of the diary’s comedy stems was a politically active poet and writer Contemporary Irish Literature of class and violence in Dorothy from the fact Pooter is self-obsessed yet from Sheffield who addressed issues of Allison’s novel Bastard Out of Carolina. lacks self-knowledge. Although he does class by writing in his Sheffield dialect. A spectre is haunting Ireland – the spectre In particular it will focus on how class not see himself as ill, I argue that the In this paper Hague’s satirical dialect of Famine. In spite of (or perhaps because can both evoke and deal with trauma, Grossmiths’ portrayal of Pooter anticipates poem ‘Egg on His Face’ will be explored. of) the unprecedented economic growth whether the protagonist’s embrace of psychoanalyst Donald Winnicott’s depiction This poem was written whilst Hague was of the Celtic Tiger years (1995-2007), which sadomasochism and fantasy can offer of the schizoid patient.2 His feelings of on the picket line in the miners’ strike of transformed Ireland from one of Europe’s anything other than a temporary form disintegration and emptiness are portrayed 1972; the miners were striking not just for poorest countries to one of its richest, of resolution or whether her position is as the result of people at home and in fair pay but also because they believed the Great Famine of 1845-52 continues predetermined by her social status. Other the workplace’s failure to empathise with that they were waging a class-war against to provide disturbing reminders of and sub-texts that I intend to address include him, and their encouragement of him the government. Hague positions his analogies for social difference. In a series the use of violence in the construction to adopt a false self. The diary’s stylistic regional dialect as a voice that has the of recent novels and plays, cosmopolitan of identities, the performance of gender, fragmentation conveys Pooter’s dissolving values of ‘straight-talking’ and ‘common and consumerist Ireland is revealed to and the legitimacy of revenge in Allison’s identity. The authors represent his writing, decency’ within the political discourse of be a fragile palimpsest easily razed to presentation of `poor white trash` families. games, DIY and acquisition of objects3 that time and he satirizes the then Prime disclose the history of class betrayal and I will also seek to explore the way in which as his unconscious attempts to locate Minister Edward Heath by translating social fracture it is founded on. In Joseph the author’s narrative form prevents and express a true self and experience Heath’s speech from a prestige form of O’Connor’s Star of the Sea, the fate of simplistic stereotyping and whether it is existence as meaningful. The Grossmiths English into the stigmatized regional Famine emigrants finds its parallel in the the characters’ so-called `blood ties` which imply Pooter’s predicament, or pathology, Sheffield dialect. Hague performs an journey of asylum seekers to Ireland at are offered as their determining features is caused by specific social factors, and authentic version of the working class the end of the twentieth century. In Sean or their social position. defines bourgeois men at the fin de siècle. miner identity and positions his poem Kenny’s The Hungry Earth and Nuala Ó within the main discourses concerning Faolain’s My Dream of You, twentieth- 1 Ed Glinert, ‘Introduction’ in The Diary of a class values prevalent at this time. I wish century urbanites time-shift to nineteenth- Nobody by George and Weedon Grossmith, ed. by Ed Glinert (London: Penguin, 1999), p. x. to explore: the characteristic cultural century rural catastrophe. In Gemma values that are associated with Hague’s Mawdsley’s The Pauper’s Graveyard,

16 17 James Heneghan’s The Grave, Alan Ryan’s by self-commodification and the need notion of the culmination of class liberty Ingrid Hanson Cast a Cold Eye and Carol Birch’s The to attract attention. Drawing on work through positive humanitarian growth University of Sheffield, UK Naming of Eliza Quinn, the bones of the by proponents of self-branding as a is, in fact, fantasy. He darkly writes, ‘No Class war and the myth of uncoffined Famine dead rise to remind response to the challenge of the so-called universal history leads from savagery to sacrificial violence in William the descendants of Famine survivors of ‘new work order’, I argue that the humanitarianism, but there is one leading Morris’s A Dream of John Ball sacrifices made and due. increasingly pervasive use of celebrity in from the slingshot to the megaton bomb’. pedagogic materials is congruent with For Adorno and subsequent thinkers, William Morris’s A Dream of John John Gray the neoliberal worldview which promotes the previously worshiped Enlightenment Ball, published in the socialist journal University of East London, UK and celebrates individualism over class- has lit the fuse for our explosive demise. Commonweal in 1886-87, draws on Celebrity, social class and the based identity inscription, and is directly Adorno subsequently propounds that the historical accounts of the Peasants’ neoliberal imperative – the case of traceable to what ELT publishers describe culture industries, such as commercial Revolt of 1381 to create a vivid tale of ELT textbooks as ‘aspirational content’. Such content, art, music, television and advertising, transformative violence that relates focused largely on spectacular personal are fundamental mechanisms to sustain directly to the class struggles of the The global explosion of commercial and professional success in which social an imprisoned working class who are nineteenth century. John Ball’s rousing English language teaching (ELT) is class is elided, is held by the ELT industry shackled by the enlightenment’s cyclic invitation to the peasants reaches out to largely coterminous with the birth of to be inherently motivating for successful citadel. The culture industry, which the readers of Morris’s tale: ‘the deeds that the neoliberal era, a period which has language learning – a view the paper involves the production of works for ye do upon the earth, it is for fellowship’s been characterised not only by the suggests is deeply problematic. reproduction and mass consumption sake that ye do them, and the life that is deregulation of financial markets, the thereby organising ‘free’ time - the in it, that shall live on and on for ever, abolition of trade barriers, and the Oliver Gilbert remnant domain of freedom under and each one of you a part of it’. The tale imposition of structural readjustment King’s College, London, UK capital in accordance with the same makes evident the contrasts between the programmes on developing world Theodore Adorno’s ‘Culture Industry’ principles of exchange and equivalence willingly sacrificed bodies of the medieval countries, but also by the extension - ‘The Menace posed by organised that reign in the sphere outside leisure, peasants and the constrained bodies of of the consumer society and the mankind to organised men’ presents culture as the realisation of Victorian labourers, who ‘must needs commodification of ever more aspects the right of all to gratification of desire pawn [their] labour for leave to labour’, as of human experience. Central to the This paper is an introduction to Theodore whilst in reality continuing the negative Morris’s dreamer-narrator puts it. Yet at the exponential rise in commercial ELT is the Adorno’s postmarxist reading of society’s integration and oppression of society. The same time A Dream draws on the religious development of a sizeable and financially culturally-enforced repressive societal objective of the culture industry is thus language of battle and sacrifice to evoke lucrative publishing industry in which structures. His fundamental conception the societal realisation of the defeat of a transcendent continuity between past textbooks aimed at the global market is the notion that the Enlightened self-reflection in the name of the illusory and present that mythologizes violent are core products. In this paper I take rationality which supposedly facilitates universality pervaded by mechanised battle and thereby offers not political the view that such artefacts can be seen humankind’s emancipation from the ‘culture’ and as such the divide between urgency but communal affect, which not only as mediating tools of subject bondage of mythic powers and allows culture and practical life has collapsed. might serve rather to inure readers to the knowledge, but also as organs for the for progressive domination over nature We occupy a reality which is formulated idea of vicarious violence than to spur ideological reproduction and legitimation actually engenders, through its intrinsic by the culture industries, displacing the them to organized action. I will examine of ‘particular constructions of reality’. character, a return to myth and new, even role of organised religion, and as such the ways in which the tale interacts with In this paper, I focus specifically on more absolute forms of domination. In we are all subject to popular culture’s its publication context and its reception by representations of celebrity in UK terms of social politics, his negative view oppressive social manifesto instigated by contemporary socialists to create a myth textbooks from the late 1970s until the of progressive humanity, wherein liberal the Enlightenment’s regressive so-called founded, not on the Sorelian principles of present. It has been suggested that the capitalism mutates into a reified social rational liberty. experience or the promise of imminent rise of celebrity is linked to – among order under the dictate of oppressive success, but on the religious idea of other things – the aestheticization and instrumental reason, culminates not in redemptive violence. The aristocratic the commodification of everyday life and an idealised state of socialism but in concept of chivalry is transmuted into an the rise of an economy characterised a state of clinical fascism. Any Marxist ideal of beautiful, sanctified class war.

18 19 Its failure confers on the working class positionings on the middle class sub- example, may be seen to fuse (and create of politicking with language. CDA goes a legacy of ritual mimetic violence, to space disputes the individualization ‘new’) aspects of English society. Important beyond the borders of text and speaker borrow René Girard’s terms, that shifts thesis and shows that micro processes in this paper, however, is the question to perceiving meaning as bi-directional their cause from the realm of the practical of class-based exclusion and inclusion, whether Gaskell’s notion of a new English and that the actual meaning is hidden but to the numinous. which could be grasped through a cultural identity does cross the class divide. Do retrievable from many contending factors approach, are still decisive in the everyday roses in her fiction adequately represent like social class, ideologies, etc., which Irmak Karademir Hazir, living of people in Turkey. such a reconstruction and reconciliation, are not necessarily found in the structural University of Manchester, UK & Middle the “social leveller” that Nicolette Scourse expression. This paper investigates a short East Technical University, Turkey Veronica Hoyt asserts them to be?2 Or is there ambiguity political campaign television advert of Class, Culture and Symbolic University of Canterbury, New Zealand in Gaskell’s reformulation of class identity Nigerian’s President Goodluck Jonathan in Boundaries: A case study on Crossing the Class Divide? Roses within her view of a rosy Englishness, his desperate move to win electorates for Turkish middle class in the fiction of Elizabeth Gaskell thereby simultaneously (if unconsciously) his return as the President of Nigeria using strengthening the hegemony of the middle the critical discourse analysis approach. The main objective of this paper is to Roses have traditionally been recognised class to which she belongs? The paper explores not only the social unpack the diversity within middle class as the national emblem for England and in 1 Austen, David. Old Roses and English Roses. class and ideological basis through which identities in Turkey through examining Gaskell’s fiction they are firmly embedded Donside Mills, Aberdeen: Antique Collectors’ the campaign advert was based by the the ways in which various types of in the English landscape, portrayed as Club, Ltd. 1999. campaigner but also how the speech could symbolic boundaries (cultural, moral, ‘natural’ as England itself. At the same time, 2 Scourse, Nicolette. The Victorians and Their be understood by the analyst based on socio-economic) are formed through while Gaskell frequently uses the motif of Flowers. Beckhenham, Kent: Croom Helm, 1983. the same criteria though from a different daily life practices, social interactions and roses nostalgically to recall England’s green perspective. evaluations. The demographic and cultural and rural core, she also uses this motif as M.S. Abdullahi-Idiagbon character of the Turkish middle class has a trope to comment on social and class University of Ilorin, Nigeria Argyro Kantara been changing especially after the 1980s issues in the context of material changes in Class and Ideology in Nigerian Freelance Researcher due to large scale structural changes, the nineteenth century. Not only are roses Political Campaigns: A critical Who won in Seattle?: Critical and this research intends to explore the a trope for England, then, but they appear discourse analysis of President discourse analysis of two articles emergent horizontal differences and to be a bridge that spans (and connects) Jonathan’s campaign advert that appeared in the British press tensions by adopting a cultural and a different classes, thus heralding more on December 1999 concerning the multidimensional approach to class. democratic notions of Englishness and class The complexities of human thoughts are future of globalisation. Drawing on 31 in-depth interviews relations. This paper will trace the history of clothed in language, which, in turn is not conducted in Ankara in 2009, this rose cultivation in England in the nineteenth separable from man’s egocentric tendency. The research to be presented involves the research identifies four different middle century, exploring various ways in which Thus, it is predominantly used to pursue critical discourse analysis of two opinion class repertoires (cultural excluders, the English landscape and flower gardens matters of interest to the speaker. Such articles concerning the ministerial meeting intellectuals, aspirational, first-generation) of English homes were a microcosm of language-use is imbued with personal of the World Trade Organization (WTO) frames of which are built not only by changing notions of Englishness and class ideology and lexical properties capable in Seattle USA that took place between cultural distinctions but also by moral relations, and how Gaskell ostensibly both of effectively conveying and legitimizing November 30th and December 5th. The judgements. A closer analysis reveals that, supported and illustrated these changes issues to the target audience. Language first article was published in together with the volume of economic through her fiction. Moreover, the nineteenth in this sense turns an individual or a state on Wednesday December 8th, in the and cultural capital, class background century preoccupation of hybridizing plants instrument at disposal of the high class Society/Environment/Trade section and has a significant effect on the current including roses resulted in ‘new races’ of used to arouse sentiments, win sympathy was written by the (then) female Indian configuration and the content of the plants and flowers. David Austen notes that and trigger the sense of submission Director of the Research Foundation for symbolic boundaries in the Turkish case. “as China blood mingled with that of the and followership. Critical discourse Science and Ecology in New Delhi, entitled On the other hand, the correspondence Gallicas and Damasks a great variety of new analysis warns against the proposition or “This round to the citizens”. The second between the interviewees’ strategies roses appeared.”1 Similarly,the mingling assumption of objectivity in utterances article was published in The Economist of performing distinction and their of classes in Gaskell’s North and South, for and it therefore sensitises people on ways on Saturday December 11th, as the first

20 21 article in the Leaders (editorial) section, Thomas Kew Roberto Lestinge and Sandra Regina Lestinge work (later became low wage workers) entitled “The real losers”. The name of the University of Nottingham, UK University of São Paulo, Brazil where land, laws and means of production journalist is not mentioned, but if we take “Wat About Di Workin Claas”: Sugarcane, ethanol and belonged to a few “capitães” established Van Dijk’s (1996:92) claim that: “In Europe, Performing class in Linton Kwesi landowners in Brazil: A critical some of the grounds for the massive there are virtually no minority journalists, Johnson’s Brixton. discourse analysis of class, wealth inequality that put Brazil high in the least of all in controlling editorial ideology and power hegemony ranks of labor-exploiting states. By critically positions” as true, we can infer that the This paper offers a reading of Johnson’s analyzing a Brazilian TV news segment, on author of the second article is white British work which examines the synergy The very beginnings of Brazil coincide the unhealthy consequences of burning and probably male. They were analysed between class, oral poetry and street-level with what Marx described as the “original sugarcane straw, we can identify the same focusing on lexical cohesion links activism in 1980s London. It is informed accumulation”, which precedes capitalist contemporary discourse of power abuse, (co-reference, lexical relations: repetition, by archival material studied at the George accumulation. Lacking means to invest political domination and inequality that reiteration, collocation and paraphrase) Padmore Institute and Black Cultural in the newfound territory, the Portuguese was current five centuries ago. following Halliday and Hasan (1976), Hoey Archive, Brixton. This April marked thirty crown decided to adopt the system (1991) and Francis (1998) on nominal years since riots swept through the South hereditary “capitanias” that worked so well Elizabeth Negus group lexical cohesion. Analysis of the London district of Brixton. Through the in the Atlantic islands, such as Madeira Barking and Dagenham College, UK above texts revealed that the cohesive work of independent publications and and Cabo Verde, whereby a noble would Dickens Revisited: Class culture / features of the texts were intimately performance poetry circles, Linton Kwesi receive a parcel of land with full rights inequalities are merely a reflection bound up with the ideology of the authors. Johnson was able to access what he called to exploit it. This was actually more of of wealth and income inequalities More specifically, the first article through the ‘ghetto grape vine’ and succinctly an obligation and short of selling, the its overwording, as defined by Fowler capture the dissatisfaction within his owner could do anything with it. The This paper seeks to explore social issues et al (1979), cited in Fairglough (1992) Brixton community. The term ‘race riots’ Brazilian soil and climate were extremely and its relation to various class culture/ with: citizens, environment, democracy, was quickly applied to the demonstrations, appropriate for planting sugarcane and inequalities, in light of Dickens insight and rights, tyranny, struggle, can be claimed a label which Johnson and the Black the commodity fetched high prices in revelation from the mid nineteenth century to portray an ideology that sees citizens British Poets would contest due to its Europe, thereby making ends meet: land to present day. The paper will focus on Bleak from all over the world fighting against circumnavigation of the root cause: class. occupation, colonization, wealth generation House, Hard Times and Our Mutual Friends an enemy (WTO) that threatens their for landowners and the crown and a as they are especially timely in this health, lives and the Earth. The second text by Journals such as Johnson’s Race Today and creation of new markets for English goods. education and class environment conscious its overwording with: poor, developing Front Lines were ephemeral yet cogent The “Colonial Pact” established that the era in which we live. The novels are countries, the West, can be claimed to articulations of black literary and political Colony could only buy and sell its goods altogether a cry against a society that is at portray an ideology that sees two worlds: consciousness, offering unparalleled to Portugal which lacked an industry, so the heart of a restricted economy, and where the West rich developed countries; and the insight into the social climate of 1980s it imported everything from England and material and social class have affected life poor developing ones that are going to Brixton. At the core of their agenda was a resold to the Colony with huge profits. and death, and where the political economy improve their lives by means of imitating counter-hegemonic critique of the ways in Sugar prices were determined by Portugal. sets in motion greed and the destruction of the West. which ‘race’ was increasingly being used to This system gave birth to the first cycle of lives. For example, in Our Mutual Friend, as Fairclough N. (1992) Discourse and Social denote an artificially constructed ‘class’. The prosperity transfer from Brazil to Portugal in other novels, Dickens presents a society Change, Cambridge: Polity Press revival of Victorian ‘sus’ laws, the ‘colour (and to England as a consequence) with that is the heart of a restricted economy, Halliday MAK and Hasan R (1976) Cohesion in tax’ charged by unscrupulous landlords very little wealth staying there. Portugal and where material and class status have English, London and New York: Longman and minimal employment opportunities ruled Brazil with an iron fist, virtually affected life and death. The society in Our all contributed to the formation of this forbidding alphabetization (this only Mutual Friend has different geographic Hoey M. (1991) Patterns of Lexis in Text, Oxford: OUP denigrated sub-class of London society. I became legal in 1808 when the Crown and social compartments of London that aim to show how the role of performance moved there), and making it impossible are saturated with death, cruelty, illness Van Dijk (1996) “Discourse, power and access” in Caldas-Coulthard C.R and Coulthard M. (eds) poets within Britain’s black population was for a middle class to emerge based on the and waste. The truth about death is that it Texts and Practices: Readings in Critical Discourse central to the reversal of these downward riches being generated in the Colony. This is aclaustrophobic ally inscribed within a Analysis, London and New York: Routledge trends of social mobility. pre-capitalistic system, powered by slave circle of utility i.e. financial income. Gaffer

22 23 [e-journal] Vol. 14, No. 3, pp.287-309. Available 1 Hexam and Mr Venue convert dead corpses conformity and other powerful forces.’ or sociopaths at the bottom of society. through Sage Publications [21 July 2010]. unto finances; the Lammles’ desire for Fashion causes individuals within varying “Perpetrators of violence are regularly Mason, P. and J. Monckton-Smith. 2008. vengeance ties in with a profit making classes to become liminal. Dress has described as ‘beasts’ or ‘perverts’ and “Conflation, Collocation, and Confusion: British venture and Jenny Wren’s voodoo practice existed as an indicator conveying from the distanced from ‘ordinary’ men” (Mason Press Coverage of the Sexual Murder of Women.” increases as her trade. Significantly, and in outset what social standing an individual and Monckton-Smith, 2008: 694). Journalism, [e-journal] Vol. 9(6). pp. 691-710. stark comparison to today’s society, material is located in. It not only unites individuals Representations of sex offenders often depict Available through Sage Publications [7 March 2010]. and class influences have characterised within a class, but can also deeply divide devious men on the fringes of society driven Britain as the most unequal society in the them. The boundaries between working by uncontrollable urges. Furthermore, Michael Pace-Sigge world, with extreme inequalities e.g. life class and middle class become distorted, rapists are routinely portrayed as members University of Liverpool, UK expectancy varies largely/proportionately as a result of aesthetics. This paper will of lower socio-economic classes. This The Liverpool speaker as an to social class. In an attempt to further establish how dress became a problematic creates the myth that real rapists are not example to connect socio- our understanding of the distressing commodity within the hierarchy of class, respectable or powerful men, a problematic economic concepts to the experiences class and income can have on leading to a merging of ‘classes’ (and the assertion in cases of date or acquaintance externalities of priming an individual and on society, close parallels conflicts which arose as a consequence) rape. These portrayals reinforce stereotypes, will be drawn on representations of health, where dress could be used by the working which find their way into public opinion, While sociolinguistics traditionally has illness and death in Dickens novels with class to emulate those of the middle and policy, and the legal system (Carll, 2003). looked at variations found between respect to issues related to: upper classes. This paper will consider how This misperception indirectly perpetuates groups of speakers of different socio- dress is on the margins of not only class, sexual assault as it redefines the crime in the economic classes, this paper tries to go • Current economic crisis, choice of but furthermore, gender; not only providing public’s mind (Franiuk, et al., 2008). In their a step further by looking at structures of medical care and Government cuts unity but showing how divisive dress can study of newspaper reporting, Renae Franiuk relationships and in what way they can which have affected access to medicine be; discovering what denotes one as being et al. (2008) found the more often rape myths be linked to a shared speech pattern. For with affects on people’s health in low ‘fashionable’ and what conforms to the are used, the more accessible they become this we will discuss how far the strength socio-economic group ‘ideal’. The paper will address how society and the harder it is to end sexual violence. of weak ties influences the individual came to understand the important messages In this paper, I will assess the imagery and speaker in their (subconscious) language • Government policies since 1979 have a ‘dress code’ could play; how one’s class language used to describe the rapists in J. choices. For this investigation, we look at widened health and wealth inequalities became defined simply by adorning certain M. Coetze’s Disgrace and Joyce Carol Oates’ Scouse, the urban vernacular spoken in types of dress or fashion. In addition, it will Rape: A Love Story. I will pay particular Liverpool and its surrounds (Merseyside). In exploring these issues, the paper also be argued how dress produced a subliminal attention to wording that depicts the rapist Liverpool is seen as a place apart – and aims to question precisely what is being language within the class system. The paper as ‘other’. I will also look at how the rapists this is also true for the accent spoken communicated in society, how it is being will reveal the significance dress held in fit within the class structure. This paper will there, which does not fit the model of received, whose voice is being heard and reinforcing and underpinning the class evaluate the authors’ treatment of the rapist the dialect continuum. It can be asked if what discourse structure is used and for hierarchy, which could be understood as to see if he is a fully developed character or there is a socio-linguistic background to whose benefit. simply, a fabricated performance. a simple caricature. Through this analysis, an otherness (and would this difference 1Valerie Steele, The Corset: A Cultural History I hope to ascertain the ways in which manifest itself in the language used?) This Emma Newey (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, contemporary literature perpetuates rape paper is split in two parts: Part one tries University of Chester, UK 2001), p. 165. myths. to highlight a number of socio-linguistic Constructing Class Through Fabric: Carll, E.K., 2003. “News Portrayals of Violence reasons why Liverpool is different. The The social life of the corset Shannon O’Hara and Women: Implications for Public Policy.” second part looks at my corpus based on University of St Andrews, UK American Behavioral Scientist, [e-journal] Vol. Liverpool English casual conversation ‘Throughout human history, people in all A Question of Class: Representing 46 No. 12. pp. 1601-10. Available through Sage and how far it provides evidence for this Publications [21 July 2010]. cultures have demonstrated an urge to rapists in contemporary literature otherness and in what way the theory “dress” or “fashion” their bodies in ways Franiuk, R. et. al., 2008. “Prevalence and of Lexical Priming can be used for a Effects of Rape Myths in Print Journalism: The that respond to particular sociocultural In literature, television, and movies, Kobe Bryant Case.” Violence Against Women, possible explanation for this linguistic ideals of beauty, eroticism, status, rapists are often portrayed as sex fiends phenomenon.

24 25 Vera Prescott Andrew Sayer Duncan Stone realm of folk music. Despite the awkward University of Lisbon, Portugal University of Lancaster, UK University of Huddersfield, UK association of Volk with Nazism, British Lovely, Wretched Peasants: Class in 21st century Britain: Regional Cricket Identities: The folk revivals throughout the 20th century Pastoral and anti-pastoral images symbolic struggles and structural construction of class narratives tied folk music to a particular ideology of in Nineteenth-Century naturalist reproduction. and their relationship to working-class culture, very much on the literature and visual arts contemporary supporters. left of the political spectrum. The orthodox I will attempt to do two things. Firstly, I view of folk music is currently facing two This paper focuses on the depictions of shall show some of the ways in which, as Cricket in the regions of Yorkshire and challenges; one class-based, the other peasants in nineteenth-century Realist/ Pierre Bourdieu argued, the very language Surrey has historically been attributed political. The privately-educated nature of Naturalist literature and visual arts, of class is a stake in the struggles between or ‘imagined’ in diametrically opposite folk acts such as Laura Marling, Noah and namely painting and photography, within classes. The euphemisms of ‘working’ and stereotyped terms; namely the the Whale, and Mumford and Sons (the their natural milieu, the rural landscape. and ‘middle’ avoid the humiliating ‘competitive’ professional North and the latter described by Jon Savage as “mass- category of ‘lower’, while the absence ‘genteel’ amateur South. This paper will marketed… Tory rock-lite”) has led many When Realism took its place as a of a category of ‘upper’ allows the rich examine the ‘invention’ of these narratives, to question whether they truly belong in dominant current in European art and to hide in the middle. In the media, the identify sources, and question the extent the folk scene. The second challenge is literature, despite the city being one of casting of ‘class politics’ as ‘the politics to which these opposing identities exist. from the British National Party, which has its main subjects as the best depiction of envy’ directed by the Left at Etonians After this brief analysis the paper will then attempted to appropriate the working class of modern life, the countryside tended and the like, allows systematic attacks on look for any actual empirical differences associations of folk to suit its own ideology. to be positively appraised in detriment working class jobs and living standards in the styles of play outside of the English This has met with fierce resistance from the to urban and industrial experience. to escape categorization as class politics. County Championship that might support traditionally leftwing scene, coalescent in For many artists and writers the In addition, a whole set of dubious these identities. This evidence will then the organisation Folk Against Fascism. This countryside was a space for individual categories of ‘wealth creation’, ‘earnings’ be used in conjunction with the results of paper examines both of these challenges and community redemption and of and ‘investment’ obscure the means a questionnaire survey of 400 supporters and their potential impact on the folk notion nostalgia for the past; for others it was by which the rich live off wealth mostly to confirm that these ‘imagined’ identities of “authenticity.” In doing so, it aims to an instrument for harsh social criticism. produced by others. New Labour’s wilful have any authenticity and suggest the show that the class associations of folk These social landscapes, in the former ignorance of class, coupled with its belief extent that they influence contemporary have always been the result of a specific case, follow the pastoral, invoking pathos in meritocracy, perpetuated what Bourdieu supporters’ today? political will. While the common conception and, in the former case, form a kind termed ‘the racism of intelligence’ through of folk in Britain illustrates the left’s of anti-pastoral, arousing bitter, often its treatment of class differentiation as a Joe Stroud success in this regard, there is no reason to humorous, and almost photographic product of individual ‘success’ and ‘failure’, University of Edinburgh, UK presume that this is fixed, or even secure. Realism. There is a wealth of examples of and its stigmatisation of those who are When Does Folk Become Fascist? this dual performance of the peasantry, destined to fail. While much progress has The class-bound discourse of Folk Steve Van-Hagen among many others, in the writings of been made in recent social science in Music Edge Hill University, UK Zola and Bunin, the paintings of Henry analysing the symbolic violence associated “Did Whitfield, or did Wesley La Thangue, George Clausen, Bastien- with such terms, it will be argued, secondly, In December 2010 The Word magazine lounge at ease / Their pride to Lepage, and the photography of Peter that merely adopting a more respectful printed an article comparing the charting pamper, or their flesh to please?” Henry Emerson. In these works the language would still leave the mechanisms UK Top 40 artists during one week in 2010 (CS, XII: 687-8): Methodism, rural landscape is either depicted as that reproduce class intact. It therefore with the same week in 1990. It found that Equalitarian Theology and Class the centre stage where peasants either remains important to make it clear that 60% of the acts making up the modern in James Woodhouse’s The Life toil to exhaustion or degenerate, where classes are also contingent structural chart were educated privately, contrasted and Lucubrations of Crispinus they either enact the sorrowful show of features of our society, embedded in with the state-school education of 80% Scriblerus (c.1795) human frailty and misery or the innate relations of ownership and division of in 1990. This revelation sparked debate wretched condition of humankind. labour, that have become naturalised in across the popular music spectrum, Despite the tendency of much scholarship everyday thinking. but it was especially vociferous in the in recent decades to conceptualise religion

26 27 primarily as a means of containment of of his dissent, by both enabling, and yet into anger: humiliated, he throws down of news data from two periods in time: the labouring classes (New Testament) simultaneously limiting the articulation of his money and storms off. Had he read the Blair period (1998-2007) and the Christian theology provided a powerful discontent. Finally, the paper will suggest Gissing’s previous novels, this unfortunate Major-period (1992-1997). Two corpora stimulus for labouring-class poets that the poem’s democratising theology young man might have thought twice of newspaper data representing these throughout the eighteenth century to can be further seen in its bold ideological before dining out. Throughout Gissing’s periods were assembled from a large, agitate for greater social and political transformation of ‘natural genius’, fiction meals are used to explore and on-line newspaper database. The corpora equality. This aim appeared throughout that mantle so often thrust upon the demonstrate the ‘fact of social difference’ were compared and the results analysed the century in, for example, poeticisations eighteenth-century labouring-class poets. - which is also the fact of the ‘native using Wmatrix (Rayson 2003,2008), which of Biblical tales depicting the poor clownishness’ and ‘unpliability to novel can calculate keyness at the word level receiving the Grace of God (including Paul Vlitos circumstances’ of the ‘English lower (key-words), at the grammatical level on earth, as opposed to only in Heaven). University of Surrey, UK ranks’. Focussing on his novels Demos (key-POS), and the semantic level (key- By the century’s end, these strategies ‘There’s a-goin’ to be a Feast’: (1886), Thyrza (1887), Born in Exile (1892) concepts). The present paper analyses co-existed with ever-greater emphases on Dining and social difference in the and The Private Papers of Henry Ryecroft just the key-word output from WMatrix, Christ’s New Testament teachings, ever- novels of George Gissing this paper examines what is at stake when and considers semantic co-occurrence, more explicit complaints and demands Gissing’s characters dine - and when semantico-syntactic behaviour, and for such equality, and religiously-inspired Writing in his commonplace book at their attempts to do so end in failure and unconventional lexical relations (e.g. justifications of the labouring-class right the turn of the twentieth century, the humiliation. opposition) of the key-words, and how to write (and publish). This phenomenon novelist George Gissing recorded that: these relate to the representations of was sponsored by the rise of several non- ‘The fact of social difference is always Brian Walker & Lesley Jeffries class. conformist religious groups, and perhaps illustrated to me by that young fellow University of Huddersfield, UK especially of Methodism. This paper will - proletarian of some kind, who had Class in Blair’s classless society: Research questions: focus on James Woodhouse’s near-29,000- evidently a little unfamiliar money in his A critical corpus-based analysis word autobiographical epic poem, The Life pocket - who came into the restaurant of the representations of class in 1. What are the key-words for the years and Lucubrations of Crispinus Scriblerus where I was dining, & awkwardly ordered print news reporting during the 1998 – 2007, as evidenced in three (written c.1795-1800), attempting to a beefsteak. He could not eat it, & after Blair years (1998- 2007) British newspapers? diagnose and account for the complex, a few vain attempts began to wrap it up 2. Have they developed meanings specific double-voiced strategies employed in his handkerchief. A waiter brought This study is part of a larger corpus-based to this period? in its impassioned, satirical polemic. him a newspaper, into which the poor project that assesses the ideological 3. Can the key-words identified be seen as Whilst the poem appears influenced by fellow cast his meat, & hurried away.’ landscape during the important years cultural keywords? the radical texts and ideas of the French So instructive did Gissing consider of the New Labour project by analysing 4. Are these key-words involved in the Revolution controversy, it seemingly this episode that he incorporated it print news reporting from that period. representations of class? stops short of advocating violent class into his 1903 novel The Private Papers We identify cultural keywords (in the revolution; in urging that Christ’s of Henry Ryecroft, expanding on the Raymond Williams’ sense) via the analysis Sally West teachings demand greater compassion bewilderment of the ‘poor fellow’ at of key-words (in the corpus/statistical University of Chester, UK and understanding (for the poor and the restaurant’s table arrangements, his sense) extracted from newspaper Naughty Apartments and labouring classes), however, Woodhouse’s ‘sheepish confusion’ when confronted data from 1998 to the end of 2007, and Disappearing Cities: The poem paradoxically uses its author’s with the menu, his awkwardness on demonstrate that certain lexemes (or subversion of space in Mikhail theology as its major justification to attack finding himself surrounded by ‘people combinations of lexemes) gain currency Bulgakov’s The Master and the privileged. This paper will argue that not of his class’, and his clumsy and futile in relatively short historical periods, and Margarita these contradictions can be understood attempts to transport his meat to his plate take on political importance in addition by situating the poem within the context using unfamiliar cutlery. This ‘victim of a to their everyday meaning. This paper In The Master and Margarita Bulgakov of Woodhouse’s sympathy with the mistaken ambition’ is put firmly back in his focuses on key-words that are involved interrogates the social structures of Methodism of Wesley and Whitefield, a social place, and the scene ends with the in the representations of class. Key- 1930s Moscow to construct a scathing theology which regulates the expression young man’s embarrassment boiling over words are generated by the comparison critique of Stalinism. An essential strand

28 29 of Bulgakov’s analysis is his awareness himself, and apply them in a postcolonial of how the inhabitation of physical British context. Taking Alan Sillitoe’s space defines and potentially confines Saturday Night and Sunday Morning and social identity. From the wrangling over Sam Selvon’s The Lonely Londoners as its apartment ownership to the distinct primary texts, the paper will challenge the physical spaces occupied by the Moscow way criticism has historically categorised intelligentsia, space repeatedly functions texts straightforwardly according to the as a marker of both class and profession. ethnicity or social class of their authors. It In the novel, carnivalesque elements, will explore the commonalities between (including the devil in human form the two texts in terms of their authors’ and a vodka-drinking, gun-toting black attempts to make the novel form a fit cat), repeatedly subvert the established medium for the expression of ‘marginal’ connections between distinct physical identity and experience. Postcolonial spaces and accepted social identities by and working-class subjectivity, and its reconfiguring those spaces both physically construction in these novels, will be and ideologically. In this way, expanded examined through the postcolonial lenses physical space leads to expanded of hybridity, mimicry, Fanon’s reworking discursive space where the foundations of Adler and Hegel and Spivak’s definition of established social identities can be of ‘subalternity’. Through the discussion of questioned and critiqued. these texts and thinkers the paper will call for a more sophisticated understanding of Jack Windle the imbrications of race and class in post- University of Sheffield, UK war British culture and society. Theorising Race and Class

As the call for papers states, ‘the emphasis on class identity has become less pronounced as academics explore the power imbalances associated with gender, ethnicity, sexuality, disability status and nationality’. This paper will attempt to address precisely this dynamic by combining a focus on British working-class writing with a postcolonial theoretical approach. It will explore how developments in the field of postcolonial studies might be usefully applied to interrogate class in contemporary British literature and society. Frantz Fanon said of Marxism that is must be ‘stretched’ in order to be applied in non-Western contexts: this paper aims to stretch concepts developed by thinkers such as Homi Bhabha, Gayatri Spivak, and Fanon

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