Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-dfsvx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-29T20:51:29.712Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Gaskell, Ghosts, and the Common Good

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2024

Carolyn Betensky
Affiliation:
University of Rhode Island, United States; Graduate Center and Queens College, CUNY, United States
Talia Schaffer
Affiliation:
University of Rhode Island, United States; Graduate Center and Queens College, CUNY, United States

Abstract

How can tenure-track allies to adjunct workers contribute in our new era of anti-tenure attacks and surging labor activism? Two of the founders of Tenure for the Common Good find guidance in Elizabeth Gaskell's representations of class relations. Gaskell reveals the pervasive entrapment of exploitative systems and suggests ways that privileged participants can serve as intermediaries, amplifying the voices of those who need to be heard. Drawing on servant relations in Cranford and laborer relations in the North and South, we find warrant for a new visibility in the fight against adjunctification.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

NOTES

1. Betensky, Carolyn, Kahn, Seth, Maisto, Maria, and Schaffer, Talia, “Common Good, Not Common Despair,” Profession, Fall 2018Google Scholar, https://profession.mla.org/common-good-not-common-despair.

2. “Higher Ed Labor United,” accessed May 4, 2023, https://higheredlaborunited.org.

3. Erin Bartram, “A Profession, If You Can Keep It,” Contingent Magazine, January 7, 2023, accessed May 4, 2023, https://contingentmagazine.org/2023/01/07/a-profession-if-you-can-keep-it.