scholarly journals The Proletarian Literature Movement: Japan’s First Encounter with Working-Class Literature

2020 ◽  
pp. 115-137
Author(s):  
Mats Karlsson
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Work Force ◽  
Japanese Women ◽  
Proletarian Literature ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Study Circles ◽  
Industrial Work ◽  
Working Class Literature ◽  
Cultural Movement ◽  
Factory Floor

This essay explores Japanese working-class literature as it developed within the wider context of the so-called Proletarian Cultural Movement that was in operation for about ten years, peaking in the late 1920s. While tracing the origins of the initiative to create a “proletarian” literature in Japan to Marxist study circles at universities, it discusses the movement’s quest to foster “true” worker writers based on the factory floor. Next, the chapter highlights literary works by female writers who were encouraged at the time by international communism’s focus on the Japanese women issue due to their high inclusion in the industrial work force. Finally, the chapter discusses the legacy and continuing relevance of Kobayashi Takiji’s The Crab Cannery Ship, the flagship of working-class literature in Japan. Throughout, the essay endeavors to paint a vivid picture of writer activists within the movement.

scholarly journals De fremtidsløse tager ordet. Klasse, prekariat og velfærdskritik i dansk samtidsprosa

2017 ◽  
Vol 31 (76) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nicklas Freisleben Lund
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Welfare State ◽  
Class Inequality ◽  
Literary Works ◽  
Working Class Literature ◽  
Social Segregation

Nicklas Freisleben Lund: “Futureless Children of the Plan”The article demonstrates how class, inequality and social segregation in recent years have become recurring and significant themes in contemporary Danish literature. Exemplified through analyses of Kenneth Jensen’s Tragedy plus time (2015), Morten Pape’s The Plan (2015) and Dennis Gade Kofod’s Nancy (2015), the article argues that an increasing number of literary works share a set of thematic, formaland political characteristics. Thus, they are characterized by 1) attempts to map out the precariat – the new underclass; 2) formal innovations of traditional working class literature; and 3) disillusioned portraits of a welfare state that has betrayed its original promises of equality and solidarity.

“Scrap-Heap Storiesˮ: Oral Narratives of Labour and Loss in Scottish Mining and Manufacturing

2020 ◽  
Vol 31 (2-2018) ◽  
pp. 8-21
Author(s):  
Arthur McIvor
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Oral History ◽  
Job Loss ◽  
Sense Of Self ◽  
Oral Narratives ◽  
Industrial Work ◽  
Working Lives ◽  
Plant Closures ◽  
The Impact

This article is an attempt to comprehend deindustrialisation and the impact of plant downsizing and closures in Scotland since the 1970s through listening to the voices of workers and reflecting on their ways of telling, whilst making some observations on how an oral history methodology can add to our understanding. It draws upon a rich bounty of oral history projects and collections undertaken in Scotland over recent decades. The lush description and often intense articulated emotion help us as academic “outsidersˮ to better understand how lives were profoundly affected by plant closures, getting us beyond statistical body counts and overly sentimentalised and nostalgic representations of industrial work to more nuanced understandings of the meanings and impacts of job loss. In recalling their lived experience of plant run-downs and closures, narrators are informing and interpreting; projecting a sense of self in the process and drawing meaning from their working lives. My argument here is that we need to listen attentively and learn from those who bore witness and try to make sense of these diverse, different and sometimes contradictory stories. We should take cognisance of silences and transgressing voices as well as dominant, hegemonic narratives if we are to deepen the conversation and understand the complex but profound impacts that deindustrialisation had on traditional working-class communities in Scotland, as well as elsewhere.

Industrial Growth in São Paulo

2018 ◽  
pp. 184-207
Author(s):  
Francisco Vidal Luna ◽  
Herbert S. Klein
Keyword(s):  
Labor Force ◽  
Foreign Capital ◽  
Work Force ◽  
The State ◽  
Foreign Born ◽  
Large Share ◽  
Industrial Growth ◽  
Industrial Work

While the creation of a dynamic agricultural economy was explained by the extraordinary quality of the soils of the state and their excellent conditions for the growth of coffee, the same was not the case with industry. But how such industrial capital was generated and the role of native and foreign capital explains how this occurred. The existence of an educated foreign born labor force was another factor. The chapter covers all the primary industries created before 1950 and how the state’s industries came to control a large share of the nation’s industrial work force.

A forgotten piece of working‐class literature: Gustav Lyser's satire of the Hewitt hearing of 1878

Labor History ◽  
1979 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 127-140
Author(s):  
Heinz Ickstadt ◽  
Hartmut Keil
Keyword(s):  
Working Class ◽  
Working Class Literature
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