The decline and fall of a working classicist

2022 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 31-45 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ross Clare

Although the academy tends not to recognize it, scholars and students from working-class backgrounds are automatically at a disadvantage. To demonstrate both sides of the university experience, I provide here a detailed, personal account of my journey from undergraduate to postgraduate to post-Ph.D. researcher. I pay special attention to my chosen subject of classics and ancient history, an area of study with its own set of class-based problems – for while those from working-class backgrounds might be (and are) subject to classism in any discipline, the seemingly inherent elitism of the classics and ancient history field makes it doubly hard for the underprivileged to succeed. I begin by illustrating how ‘working-class knowledge’ of popular culture granted me access into an otherwise closed, exclusionary set of subject materials and go from here to detail how such work is undervalued by the field, before ending on the violent effects that the all-too-familiar casualized employment structure has on those would-be academics who lack access to family wealth, savings and freedom of opportunity/action. Ultimately, I try to show how that – no matter how hard you try – if you are from working-class background, you are highly unlikely to succeed in the modern-day academic system.

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-14

In four sections, the Introduction provides an overview, outlining the methodology and approach chosen by the editors, going on to explore Woolton, the Man, assessing his personal background as a factor in his actions as Minister of Food. This includes his emergence from a working-class background via education, his time pre-1914 as a social worker, as Warden of Liverpool’s David Lewis Trust and the University settlement, and his interwar emergence as a philanthropically-guided businessman, including the emergence of a key Northern Circle of influential friends – something with a significant impact on his understanding of his role as Minister of Food and then of Reconstruction. It also provides a survey of the background context to the Ministry of Food, including its move to Colwyn Bay under Woolton’s direction, exploring how the move of the main establishment there was kept out of public consciousness, and providing insights into how Woolton ran his split-site Ministry, with key figures like Sir Henry French and John Redcliffe-Maud. The construction of the new Ministry of Reconstruction is also explored, including the importance of Woolton’s non-party status, discussion of the challenges Woolton faced, his relations with Churchill and other key politicians including his good personal friend Attlee.


1971 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maxwell Schleifer ◽  
Joseph Katz ◽  
Asa Knowles ◽  
Nevitt Sanford
Keyword(s):  

Author(s):  
Thomas Hardy

Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul?' Jude Fawley, poor and working-class, longs to study at the University of Christminster, but he is rebuffed, and trapped in a loveless marriage. He falls in love with his unconventional cousin Sue Bridehead, and their refusal to marry when free to do so confirms their rejection of and by the world around them. The shocking fate that overtakes them is an indictment of a rigid and uncaring society. Hardy's last and most controversial novel, Jude the Obscure caused outrage when it was published in 1895. This is the first truly critical edition, taking account of the changes that Hardy made over twenty-five years. It includes a new chronology and bibliography and substantially revised notes.


2021 ◽  
pp. 146879412110347
Author(s):  
Imane Kostet

This article aims to contribute to the literature on power dynamics and researchers’ positionality in qualitative research, by shedding light on the experiences of a minority ethnic researcher with a working-class background. Drawing on Bourdieusian concepts, it discusses how middle-class children confronted the researcher with language stigma and how they, while drawing boundaries vis-à-vis those who ‘lack’ cultural capital, (unintentionally) drew boundaries against the researcher herself. In turn, it illustrates how during interviews with working-class children, manners had to be adopted with which the researcher is no longer familiar. This article calls on ethics committees to more strongly consider how researchers might become ‘vulnerable’ themselves during fieldwork and to acknowledge intersectional experiences that potentially cause power dynamics to shift, even in research involving groups that are socially believed to have little power, such as children.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6724
Author(s):  
Lien Thi Kim Nguyen ◽  
Tom Meng-Yen Lin ◽  
Hoang Phuong Lam

This study examines the role of student co-creation behavior in contributing to student satisfaction, perceived university image, and student positive word of mouth (WOM). Using a sample of 513 students from a Taiwanese university and conducting partial least squares structural equation modeling, the findings indicate that co-creating value is critical to student satisfaction, university image, and positive WOM. The results also show the effect of student satisfaction and university image on student positive WOM. This study confirms the pivotal role of student participation in co-creating value in enhancing satisfaction with the university experience, creating and sustaining a positive image, and building the credibility of the university. This research is particularly important to higher education institutions because it has practical implications for decision-makers, brand managers, and HE marketers who wish to improve understanding of the relationship between the university and students in the process of co-creating value and its outcomes.


Archaeologia ◽  
1817 ◽  
Vol 18 ◽  
pp. 340-343
Author(s):  
Edward Daniel Clarke

It is not attaching too high a degree of importance to the study of Celtic antiquities, to maintain, that, owing to the attention now paid to it in this country, a light begins to break in upon that part of ancient history, which, beyond every other, seemed to present a forlorn investigation. All that relates to the aboriginal inhabitants of the north of Europe, would be involved in darkness but for the enquiries now instituted respecting Celtic sepulchres. From the information already received, concerning these sepulchres, it may be assumed, as a fact almost capable of actual demonstration, that the mounds, or barrows, common to all Great Britain, and to the neighbouring continent, together with all the tumuli fabled by Grecian and by Roman historians as the tombs of Giants, are so many several vestiges of that mighty family of Titan-Celts who gradually possessed all the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and who extended their colonies over all the countries where Cyclopéan structures may be recognized; whether in the walls of Crotona, or the temple at Stonehénge; in the Cromlechs of Wales, or the trilithal monuments of Cimbrica Chersonesus; in Greece, or in Asia-Minor; in Syria, or in Egypt. It is with respect to Egypt alone, that an exception might perhaps be required; but history, while it deduces the origin of the worship of Minerva, at Sais, from the Phrygians, also relates of this people, that they were the oldest of mankind. The Cyclopéan architecture of Egypt may therefore be referred originally to the same source; but, as in making the following Observations brevity must be a principal object, it will be necessary to divest them of every thing that may seem like a Dissertation; and confine the statement, here offered, to the simple narrative of those facts, which have led to its introduction.


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