This study is about British working-class fiction in the post-war period. It covers various authors such as Robert Tressell, George Orwell, Walter Greenwood, Lewis Grassic Gibbon and DH Lawrence from the early twentieth century; writers traditionally classified as 'Angry Young Men' like John Osborne, Arnold Wesker, Shelagh Delaney, John Wain and Kingsley Amis; and working-class novelists like John Braine, Stan Barstow, David Storey, Alan Sillitoe and Barry Hines from the 1950s and 1960s. Some of the main issues dealt with in the course of this study are language, form, community, self/identity/autobiography, sexuality and relationship with bourgeois art. The major argument centres on two questions: representation of working-class life, and the relationship between working-class literary tradition and dominant ideologies. We will be arguing that while working-class fiction succeeded in challenging and rupturing bourgeois literary tradition, on the level of language and linguistic medium of expression for example, it utterly failed to break away from dominant, bourgeois modes of literary production in relation to form, for instance. Our argument is situated within Marxist approaches to literature, a political and aesthetic position from which we attempt an analysis and an evaluation of this working-class literary tradition. These critical approaches provide us also with the theoretical tool to define the political perspective of this tradition, and to judge whether it was confined to a descriptive mode of representation or located in a radical, political outlook.

Human trafficking is a global crime that violates the rights of people by holding them in captivity and coercing them into sexual slavery or strenuous labor. It has become a growing phenomenon on Cape Cod, Massachusetts with no signs of stopping. Using John Kingdon's work on multiple policy streams as the primary theoretical foundation, the purpose of this case study was to identify the perceived barriers to implementing existing Massachusetts's policies targeting human trafficking on Cape Cod as experienced by social service providers and law enforcement. Data were collected from 6 participants through e-mail interview. These data were inductively coded and analyzed using Braun and Clarke's thematic analysis procedure. Findings indicate that participants perceived the key barriers to full implementation of state policy to be a lack of training, difficulties in forming and maintaining partnerships, gaps in policy, and funding deficiencies. Participants also consistently noted that vulnerable populations supply the demand for human trafficking, and vulnerable populations are one of the reasons why human trafficking continues to exist. The implications for social change include recommendations to local government policy makers to focus on building coalitions between law enforcement and social service agencies to capitalize on opportunities to engage in proactive policy making to ameliorate the social impacts of human trafficking, including recovery services for victims.

“Perhaps it is money that expresses the distinction between the two societies best.” This statement from Deleuze’s (1992: 5) famous “Postscript on the Societies of Control” (first published in French, cf. Deleuze 1990) should be taken seriously. Much has been made of the implications of this essay, especially for the description of contemporary digital culture: e.g., tracking as an example of the “control mechanism, giving the position of any element within an open environment at any given instant” (ibid.: 7). The central role of money and Deleuze’s specific ideas regarding the transformation of capitalism in (or as?) ‘societies of control’ have received comparatively little attention. Seb Franklin (2015: 3-10) has already discussed Deleuze’s famous essay in relation to questions of socio-economic order, but he did not explicitly discuss the role of money. This is all the more surprising if we consider that Deleuze called himself a Marxist: “I think Félix Guattari and I have remained Marxists, in our two different ways, perhaps, but both of us. You see, we think any political philosophy must turn on the analysis of capitalism and the ways it has developed” (Deleuze 1995: 171). Among others, Choat (2010: 125-55) has underlined that Deleuze’s thought was always very close to Marx (cf. also Thoburn 2003). It is therefore not surprising that Deleuze assigns money an important role in the description of control societies.

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Esta pesquisa elege o materialismo histórico-dialético como método de análise de ques-tões contemporâneas da homossexualidade e sua relação com o Judiciário brasileiro. Articula paradigmas marxianos, marxistas e feministas, por meio da interdisciplinaridade do direito, da sociologia, da antropologia, da filosofia e das ciências da linguagem, para compreender o fenômeno LGBT (lésbicas, gays, bissexuais, transexuais e transgêneros) que mobiliza indivíduos na reivindicação por promoção, efetivação e proteção de direitos humanos. Recorre aos conceitos de fetichismo da mercadoria, fetichismo jurídi-co, forma jurídica, contrato e gênero, na perspectiva da História, para compreender e promover a desnaturalização de processos sociais e situá-los na base econômica da so-ciedade em face da luta de classes. Posiciona o direito na superestrutura, onde localiza também o direito civil, o direito de família e os direitos humanos, para desnudar seus processos discursivos ideológicos e, logo, práticos. Empreende uma crítica marxista dos direitos humanos ao tomar como objeto decisões do Supremo Tribunal Federal (STF) e do Superior Tribunal de Justiça (STJ), respectivamente, sobre o reconhecimento da união estável entre pessoas do mesmo sexo e a autorização de conversão em casamento de união estável entre duas lésbicas. / This research chooses historic-dialectic materialism as a method of analyzing contem-porary issues concerning homosexuality and its relation to the Brazilian Judiciary System. It formulates Marxian, Marxist and feminist paradigms, through the interdisciplinarity of law, sociology, anthropology, philosophy and language sciences, to comprehend the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and transgender) phenomenon that mobilizes individuals in the claim for promotion, effectuation and protection of human rights. It resorts to the concepts of commodity fetishism, legal fetishism, judicial form, contract and gender, in the historical perspective, to comprehend and promote the de-naturalization of social processes and place them in the economical base of society in light of class struggle. It positions the law in the superstructure, where it also finds civil law, family law and human rights, to unveil its discursive ideological and, therefore, practical processes. It undertakes a Marxist critique of human rights by taking as object Brazils Federal Supreme Court (STF) and Superior Court of Justice (STJ) decisions, respectively, regarding the recognition of same-sex unions and the authorization of civil union conversion into marriage between two lesbians

The existence of prostitution has been a longtime concern for many societies. It has also been a complicated issue within feminist discourse. Some women choose sex work as a viable economic option while others are forced into prostitution by traffickers and pimps and some are forced into it due to disadvantaged circumstances. The presence of sex work and prostitution is one of the occurrences that accompany a patriarchal capitalist system. Many feminists indeed argue that prostitution is a byproduct of a patriarchal capitalist system. The migration of women for sex work and the trafficking of women into prostitution cannot occur without participation of a dominant more powerful group, and a marginalized less powerful group. Sex work and prostitution are complicated components in an ever increasingly connected world. However, all too often, the belief that a patriarchal capitalist system supports the migration of women for sex work and the trafficking of women into prostitution fails to encompass all the complexities surrounding these occurrences. The existence of sex work and prostitution involves legal, economic, political, and moral implications that deserve broad theorization. In order to more fully understand the legal, economic, political, and moral implications that contribute to the existence of sex work and prostitution, the voices of women that are involved must be illuminated. While this interview does not yet exist, I argue that only through interviews of women in sex work and prostitution can we fully understand the issue. Illuminating the voices of these women will help to reveal how issues surrounding sex workersí agency and victimization of trafficked women are present and absent within feminist discourse. This thesis focuses on the differences between women sex workers with agency and women who are victims of trafficking and pimping. It also discusses the migration of women into the sex industry. The discussion of agency and victimization is applied to modern and postmodern feminist theory. Modern feminist theory is useful to an understanding of how sex work and prostitution are oppressive to the women involved and how conditions of agency and victimization are supported and/or negated. Postmodern feminist theory transforms the focus of the discussion from the identity of sex workers and prostitutes as agents and victims to a discussion of these women as subjects. First person interviews by sex workers reveal their subjectivity and supports the argument that what they do is indeed work, and it is viewed as such by the women themselves. Inclusion of the voices of sex workers and prostitutes also reveals the issues and concerns that they experience as employees in sex work and prostitution.

Marxist themes of Roddy Doyle’s The Commitments have not often been looked at. Yet, they are decidedly prominent. The band make use of a Marxist image and of collectivist easy-played, easily-understood music in order to gain working class listeners. In fact, the band itself is based on an egalitarian structure, until it, due to an increasing individualist wish for success, falls apart. The aim of this essay is thus to argue, through pointing to the Marxist rhetoric of the band and the hypocrisy around it, and through a comparative reading between The Commitments and Orwell’s Animal Farm, that The Commitments has an allegorical value, much like Animal Farm does, when it comes to depicting the way Marxism has worked and failed as it has been practised in reality.

Stephen Sondheim’s 1979 award-winning musical Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street was produced during a time of great political and economic uncertainty in New York City. Although not overtly political, the themes of urban crisis and class inequality that birthed the original legend of Sweeney Todd in Industrial Revolution London continued to play a large role within the modern musical, reflecting leftist political concerns at large. The main political argument within the work is the critique of class hierarchies created by capitalism and how the upper classes abuse the lower classes, ie. how Judge Turpin uses his power to abuse Sweeney Todd and the grave consequences of such actions. Less obvious, however, are the importance of gender hierarchy and the objectification of women within this anti-capitalist critique. This paper focuses on the character of Johanna and the three songs sung about her by the three main male leads. These songs provide a case study of how gendered objectification and commodification play a significant role in the overall Marxist critique intrinsic to the musical and the Sweeney Todd legend overall. The work’s rootedness in the anti-capitalist critique of the New Left in the 1970s and the concurrent rise of Marxist and socialist feminism provide clues to understanding the context and meaning behind the violent treatment of women within the musical as an extension of the anti-capitalist critique that is fundamental to the work. / text

Thesis (M.A.) - Carleton University, 2003. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 73-75). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Uppsala University, 1993. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 244-253) and index.