Work as the determination of the self by the world " that which we are compelled to do; yet also the means by which the self transforms the world " productive activity as agency. This philosophical dichotomy is given salient relevance by the prominence of notions of work in contemporary culture, media and political discourse.
The Centre for Research into Communications, Culture and Media therefore seeks to understand how work has been, among others, imagined, historicised, fantasised, evaded, and transformed, across a range of cultural texts and practices. This Symposium focuses on the representation of work in cultural texts, and especially the importance of representations of work in organising, constraining, and enabling individual agency, in conjunction with economic systems and distinctions of class, gender, and nation.
Please click through to read draft papers and position statements. More will be added in advance of the Symposium. Colleagues within and beyond the University of Winchester are invited to attend and/or offer a paper. To do so please contact Prof Jude Davies, Convenor of the Centre for Research into Communications, Culture and Media.
Confirmed Participants (University of Winchester, unless stated otherwise)
Dr Liam Connell 'The Work of Nations: Work, Fiction and the National Economy in the Era of Globalization' (outline)
Prof Jude Davies 'Work, Class and Utopian Vision in American Literary Naturalism'
Denise Hanrahan Wells 'An Archaeology of the Yuppie'
Dr Fran Mason 'The Honourable Assassin on Film: Transcendental Subjectivity in the Market of Murder'
Dr Marina Moskowitz (University of Glasgow) 'Industrial Plants: The Image of Work in the Horticultural Trades in Nineteenth Century America' (outline)
Carol Smith, 'Domesticity and the Workplace in Post-feminist American Fiction'
Also participating
Dr Mandy Bloomfield title to be confirmed
Dr Leighton Grist
Justine Mortimer title to be confirmed