Archive: Working-Class Art
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Notre Dame Cathedral and Questions from a Worker Who Reads (after Bertolt Brecht)
Public reaction to the Notre Dame Cathedral fire raises several questions in the mind of this week’s contributor to Working Class Perspectives, Sarah Attfield, regarding the biases present in reporting, public sympathy, and colonizers’ mentality. Left out of the telling of Notre Dame’s history are the workers who laid its stones hundreds of years ago, all while looking to the workers who must soon lay stones for the Cathedral again.
Categories: Uncategorized, Visiting Scholars
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WCP: Sorry to Bother You: A Spectacle That Teaches
Among labor activists, summer movie-going wasn’t defined by another high-budget action film or carefree 70’s themed musical, but by Boots Riley’s Sorry to Bother You. In this week’s Working-Class perspectives, Kathy M. Newman reviews the film and discusses how its production is reflective of a changing Hollywood that is becoming more accepting of pro-union politics.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: Worker Portraits: Contradictions and Contingencies
Art depicting workers offers contradicting meanings of work in both capturing the dignity and pride of workers but also representing the struggles and hardships of labor. In Working-Class Perspectives, Sherry Linkon reflects on how these tensions manifest in a new exhibit at the National Portrait Gallery and argues that the exhibit neglects the precarious nature of work today.
Category: Visiting Scholars
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WCP: Valuing a Lost Work Culture
Beyond a paycheck, work fosters social connection, dignity, and a sense of creativity. In this week’s Working-Class Perspective, Tim Strangleman ponders whether the decline of older industries means that fewer workers engage art in their labor.
Category: Visiting Scholars