Working-Class Rhetorics

Jennifer Beech, Ph.D. (2001), The University of Southern Mississippi, is Professor of English at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga. She is the author of Brill’s Guidebook for Teaching and Engaging with Critical Whiteness Studies, and has also co-chaired the Working-Class Culture and Pedagogy Standing Group for CCCC.Matthew Wayne Guy, Ph.D. (2004), Louisiana State University, is Associate Professor of English at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga where he teaches literary theory. He has published and presented on pop culture, phenomenology, ethics, and the works of Emmanuel Levinas.

• List of Figures and TablesNotes on ContributorsIntroduction: Defining and Defying Common (Mis)Understandings of the Working ClassJennifer Beech and Matthew Wayne GuyPART 1: Memoirs and Personal Essays1 Social Class and SociolectsIrvin Peckham2 Becoming “Gente Educada”: Navigating Academia as a Working-Class, Multiply-Marginalized StudentChristina V. Cedillo3 Rhetoric: From a Community Yet to ArriveJosé Manuel Cortez4 Five Miles and a World Away: A MemoirEdward J. Whitelock5 Feeling Like an Imposter at CollegeNancy Mack6 (Un)Belonging in Liminality: Garage StoriesPhil Bratta7 Book Smart AND Street SmartValerie Murrenus Pilmaier8 “Remember the Spartans”William Thelin9 Honest WorkKatherine HighfillPART 2: Critical Essays10 Bodies in the World of Labor: Class, Affect, and Rhetoric in IWW’s “What is What in the World of Labor?” PosterPhil Bratta11 Mind on Heaven: Working-Class Rhetorics in Serpent-Handling Rituals of Southern AppalachiaHeather Palmer12 White Bread as a Working-Class SymbolKelli R. Gill13 “Put Some Flowers in the Graveyard”: The Gloomy Fate of the Working Class in George A. Romero’s Land of the DeadPhilip L. Simpson14 Working Class on the Small ScreenSarah Attfield15 #ActorsWithDayJobs: Geoffrey Owens, Job Shaming, and the Ideology of WorkWilliam DeGenaro16 (Literal) Self-Exposure: Celebrity “Activism” during Covid-19Abby Graves17 Returning to Van Buren Street: A Photographic EssayDavid EngenIndex