SILENCE!: the great silencing of British working class culture

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This book argues that British working-class urban culture was silenced in the period 1900 - 1950 and that the effects of this are still felt. The agencies of this silencing were state education, the BBC Radio and the commercialisation of working class cultural institutions (from 1850). The effects in my own life are picked up from the fifties onwards and some of the fightback against the hegemony of silencing is shown often with graphic pages.

The style is a cross between lecture slides and Zine! So a lot of mini posters, and graphic pages. It follows on from previous work but includes new research and new formulations to explore the relation between class oppression and culture. It should be more accessible than previous works.

What does it feel like for a whole class to collectively loose its voice? Stefan Szczelkun’s Silence! is a careful tracking of the ways in which working class culture has been oppressed and is a call to arms to actively find ways for working class culture to re-find its voice. Through autobiographical storytelling and historical research Silence! is essential reading for those who are interested in challenging the hegemony of middle class cultural institutions and reasserting autonomous working class culture.
Jordan McKenzie