Considering Class: Theory, Culture and the Media in the 21st Century

Considering Class: Theory, Culture and Media in the 21st Century offers the reader international and interdisciplinary perspectives on the importance of class analysis in the 21st century. Political economists, sociologists, educationalists, ethnographers, cultural and media analysts combine to provide a multi-dimensional account of current class dynamics. The crisis consists precisely in the gap between the objective reality and efficacy of class forces shaping international politics and the relative paucity of class-consciousness at a popular level and appreciation of class as an explanatory optic at a theoretical level. This important book shows why the process of reconstructing class consciousness must also take place on the ground of cultural and subjective formation where everyday values, habits and media practices are in play.

Contributors are: Anita Biressi, Joseph Choonara, Maurizio Donato, Danny Dorling, Mark Gibson, Craig Haslop, Dave Hill, Peter Jakobsson, Marina Kabat, Holly Lewis, Catherine Lumby, Lisa Mckenzie, Tony Moore, Adrian Murray, Deirdre O’Neill, Jonathan Pratschke, Michael Seltzer, Eduardo Sartelli, Fredrik Stiernstedt, Roberto Taddeo, Mike Wayne, Milly Williamson, Ferruh Yılmaz.

Deirdre O’Neill is a working class lecturer and filmmaker. Her forthcoming book Film as a Radical Pedagogic Tool explores the way in which film can be used as a means of working class people representing their own lives.

Mike Wayne has written widely on the politics and ideology of film, television and the media as well as Marxist cultural theory. His most recently published book is Red Kant: Aesthetics, Marxism and the Third Critique (Bloomsbury, 2014).

"Considering Class is a highly beneficial source of intellect for both learners and researchers of Marxist class theory, especially those whose interests lie with contemporary analyses of culture and media... [It] presents its readers with new viewpoints on class by re-evaluating class theory from a contemporary standpoint and studying its place in culture and media. The book is worthy of commendation in that it successfully reintroduces critical perspectives on class theory to culture and media studies. It therefore proves a valuable collection of scholarly texts for researchers of relevant themes." – Ufuk Gürbüzdal, in: Marx & Philosophy Review of Books (23 January 2020)