When:
June 1, 2016 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
2016-06-01T18:00:00+01:00
2016-06-01T19:00:00+01:00
Where:
John Henry Brookes Lecture Theatre
Brookes University (Stop B2)
Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX3
UK
Brookes University (Stop B2)
Oxford, Oxford, Oxfordshire OX3
UK
Cost:
Free
Contact:
Simon will investigate class and literature ranging across British writers from the early 19th century through to the present day.
Across poetry and fiction, Simon will present works – classic and not so well-known – which foreground issues of social and economic power, work and wealth, language and accent, region and property.
This lecture asks what happens when literary pursuits turn to working-class lives and what happens when working-class people write themselves into these traditions? Is there a continuity, say, between the ‘peasant poet’ John Clare an the Booker-winning Glaswegian novelist James Kelman? Should we even care about class when we read? Is there such a thing as working-class literary tradition?