The Texas Center for Working-Class Studies will mark its fifth annual conference on Feb. 28, 2019. Preparations for the conference include a student essay contest with a cash award and an opportunity for the top three papers’ authors to present at the conference.
This year’s conference keynote is Dr. Jacqueline Jones, chair of the History Department at The University of Texas at Austin. Dr. Jones is a MacArthur Fellow and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in History in 1986 for Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow: Black Women, Work and the Family from Slavery to the Present. Dr. Jones also published Goddess of Anarchy: The Life and Times of Lucy Parsons, American Radical in 2017.
Students from all disciplines are encouraged to submit essays related to the understanding of the working class. Essay submissions could include research essays, historical overviews, memoirs, literary criticism, creative non-fiction, profiles or other genres of writing.
The top three papers will receive certificates and awards (First: $200, Second: $150, Third: $100). The papers’ writers will present their work at the Feb. 28 conference.
Student essay submissions should be at least four pages, typed and double spaced. Essays should make use of a documentation style appropriate for the discipline. Submissions should be emailed to Chad Pearson (CEPearson@collin.edu) by 5 p.m., Friday, Dec. 15.