Art, Labour and American Life - 1930-2020

This book examines labour in the age of US hegemony through the art that has grappled with it; and, vice versa, developments in American culture as they have been shaped by work's transformations over the last century. Describing the complex relations between cultural forms and the work practices, Art, Labour and American Life explores everything from Fordism to feminization, from white-collar ascendency to zero hours precarity, as these things have manifested in painting, performance art, poetry, fiction, philosophy and music. Labour, all but invisible in cultural histories of the period, despite the fact most Americans have spent most of their lives doing it, here receives an urgent re-emphasis, as we witness work's radical redefinition across the world.  

Ben Hickman is Senior Lecturer in Modern Poetry and Director of the Centre for Modern Poetry at the University of Kent, UK, having studied at University College, London and the University of Kent. Recent publications include John Ashbery and English Poetry (Edinburgh University Press, 2012), and Poetry and Real Politics: Crisis and the US Avant-Garde (2016), also with EUP.