Tag: Labour

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University College London: Review: Queer Work/Queer Labour

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Conference Review: ‘Queer Work/Queer Labour,’ UCL, 15 March 2018 https://www.ucl.ac.uk/lgbtq-research/sites/lgbtq-research/files/queer_work_queer_labour_programme_4_2_19.pdf Professor Margot Canaday (Princeton University) delivered queer UCL’s annual plenary lecture on ‘“The One’s Who Had Nothing to Lose”: Days and Nights in the Queer Work World’. Canaday took audience members on a spatial tour of the ‘queer work world’… Continue reading

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God and the Revolution: Christianity, the South, and the Communist Party of the USA

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In an article written for the Financial Times in October 2013, the journalist Robert Wright claimed that “[o]rganised labour has never taken hold in the American South, where unions are viewed with suspicion”. He quoted Nelson Lichtenstein, a professor at the University of California at Santa Barbara, who argued that… Continue reading

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May Day and the future of workers’ internationalism

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The conference “Workers of all lands unite? Working class nationalism and internationalism until 1945,” (University of Nottingham) highlighted how workers, now more than ever, need an international movement, one that can tackle the issues raised by a globalized system of production. (Review by co-organisers and labour scholars Lorenzo Costaguta and Steven Parfitt) Continue reading

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Book Review: Chasing the American Dream – Understanding What Shapes Our Fortunes by Mark Robert Rank, et al

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The American Dream is a concept and ideal that millions of people around the word subscribe to wholeheartedly, to the extent that huge numbers risk everything just to have a chance of achieving it. Chasing the American Dream explains just what that dream is, what it means to a plethora of Americans striving for it and assesses whether it is still possible to achieve in the context of an economic downturn. Continue reading

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Fear and Motels in Las Vegas: Segregation and Celebrity on the Strip

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Las Vegas was so strict in its segregation policies that it was known as the “Mississippi of the West.”[i] It was, after all, a town built on tourism and to allow blacks in was to affront white tourists from strictly segregated regions. This post looks at the ways that three well-known black entertainers challenged the segregation policies of big hotel casinos in 1950s Las Vegas. Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne and Nat King Cole each won the right for themselves and their musicians to become guests of the establishments. At the same time, the post asks whether the triumphs of these celebrities can be regarded as true civil rights victories, or whether they are simply indicators of individual star status. Continue reading

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Review of American Imperialism and Identity Conference

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American Imperialism and National Identity Conference, University of Durham 14 June 2014   With Iraq in turmoil and U.S. military involvement in the Middle East once again in the spotlight, the timing of the ‘American Imperialism and National Identity Conference’ on the 14th of June at St. Aidan’s College, University… Continue reading

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The U.S: A Society Without Classes? Conference Review of “How Class Works”

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“In an intense and moving talk, the young militant Saket Soni shared his experience as the organizer of the Indian underpaid imported workforce in the post-Katrina New Orleans and stressed the importance of abandoning old categories to analyse new circumstances: the globalization of the job market and the explosive request for flexible/temporary workers have revolutionized the reality of workers in the U.S. Soni closed his talk by underscoring the importance of theorizing and scientifically analysing the new circumstances. This, he maintained, is the starting point to create a truly transnational workers’ organization.” Continue reading