Vanishing Moments analyzes how various American authors have reified class through their writing, from the first influx of industrialism in the 1850s to the end of the Great Depression in the early 1940s. Eric Schocket uses this history to document America s long engagement with the problem of class stratification and demonstrates how deeply America s desire to deny the presence of class has marked even its most labor-conscious cultural texts.
Schocket offers careful readings of works by Herman Melville, Rebecca Harding Davis, William Dean Howells, Jack London, T. S. Eliot,...

A passionate examination of the social and economic injustices that continue to shackle the American people

Praise for Workin on the Chain Gang:

. . . bracing and provocative. . . .

Publishers Weekly

. . . clear-sighted . . . Mosley offers chain-breaking ideas. . . .

Los Angeles Times Book Review

A] thoroughly potent dismantling of Yanqui capitalism, the media, and the entertainment business, and at the same time a celebration of rebellion, truth as a tool for emancipation, and much else besides. . . ....

"An outstanding piece of scholarship and a welcome contribution to the field, this collection of neglected but powerful poetry speaks to our own time as much as it does to its own era."
---Nicholas Coles, University of Pittsburgh "Opens up a dramatic new aspect of American literature for study, discussion, and enjoyment. The collection of poems is original and engaging and is sure to be useful for classes in literature, American history, and labor studies."
---Alan Wald, University of Michigan You Work Tomorrow provides a glimpse into a relatively unknown aspect of American...

Commerce in Color explores the juncture of consumer culture and race by examining advertising, literary texts, mass culture, and public events in the United States from 1893 to 1933. James C. Davis takes up a remarkable range of subjects--including the crucial role publishers Boni and Liveright played in the marketing of Harlem Renaissance literature, Henry James's critique of materialism in The American Scene, and the commodification of racialized popular culture in James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Colored Man--as he argues that racial...

"An outstanding piece of scholarship and a welcome contribution to the field, this collection of neglected but powerful poetry speaks to our own time as much as it does to its own era."
---Nicholas Coles, University of Pittsburgh"Opens up a dramatic new aspect of American literature for study, discussion, and enjoyment. The collection of poems is original and engaging and is sure to be useful for classes in literature, American history, and labor studies."
---Alan Wald, University of Michigan"You Work Tomorrow" provides a glimpse into a relatively unknown aspect of American literary and...

The Poverty Law Canon takes readers into the lives of the clients and lawyers who brought critical poverty law cases in the United States. These cases involved attempts to establish the right to basic necessities, as well as efforts to ensure dignified treatment of welfare recipients and to halt administrative attacks on federal program benefit levels. They also confronted government efforts to constrict access to justice, due process, and rights to counsel in child support and consumer cases, social welfare programs, and public housing. By exploring the personal narratives that gave...