September 11, 2019
Christie Launius presents at international conference
Submitted by Marion Schweitzer
Christie Launius, associate professor and department head of the gender, women, and sexuality studies, presented her work at the Working-Class Studies Association conference, "Working-Class Studies Beyond the Heartlands," Sept. 3-6 at the University of Kent, Canterbury, United Kingdom.
She presented from a work-in-progress on two contemporary working-class memoirs: J.D. Vance's "Hillbilly Elegy" (2016), and Sarah Smarsh's "Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country in the World" (2018). Her interest is in how these memoirs circulate among middle-class readers as a window into the world of red-state, white working-class America.
Launius has published several journal articles on narratives of upward class mobility gained via education, and is co-editor of the forthcoming "Routledge International Handbook of Working-Class Studies."