Feb. 6, 2020 – The Texas Center for Working-Class Studies (TCWCS) will hold its sixth annual academic conference from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20 in the Collin College Plano Campus (Spring Creek) Living Legends Conference Center. Conference presentations are free and open to the public.
This year’s keynote speaker is Barbara Jensen, author of “Reading Classes: On Culture and Classism in America,” and her talk is titled “College, Culture, and Classism.” Jensen, also a licensed community and counseling psychologist, has been examining and teaching about working-class cultures and classism for more than 30 years. A founding member and past president of the Working-Class Studies Association, Jensen has been instrumental in establishing and building the field of Working-Class Studies in the United States. The conference will also feature presentations by other noted faculty and guests on issues related to social class, work, and the working class.
Past keynote speakers have included Victoria Bynum, Sherry Linkon, and Heather Ann Thompson. The center sponsors a registered student organization, Working-Class Heroes, and an annual student essay contest. The center also provides support to faculty who may want to integrate Working-Class Studies into their pedagogy.
Open to a wide variety of academic disciplines, the conference draws sociologists, anthropologists, literary scholars, photographers, and other artists dedicated to understanding the global working-class experience from all scholarly angles. As in previous years, the conference will include undergraduate research in addition to established speakers.
The Living Legends Conference Center is located on the northeast side of Collin College’s Plano Campus, 2800 East Spring Creek Parkway in Plano. For more information on the conference or the Texas Center for Working-Class Studies, contact Director Dr. Lisa A. Kirby, at LKirby@collin.edu.
Collin College serves more than 59,000 credit and continuing education students annually and offers more than 100 degrees and certificates, including new Bachelor of Science in Nursing (BSN) and Bachelor of Applied Technology (BAT) in Cybersecurity degrees. The only public college based in Collin County, Collin College is a partner to business, government and industry, providing customized training and workforce development. In addition, the college operates the Collin Higher Education Center, which has an enrollment of more than 3,300 each year in partnership with The University of Texas at Dallas, Texas Woman’s University, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Texas Tech University and the University of North Texas. For more information, visit www.collin.edu.