General entry requirements + English 6.

The course can normally be included as part of a general degree at undergraduate level.

The aim of the course is to give students the opportunity to study working-class literatures from different periods and contexts from a historical and international perspective, with a focus on this literature’s relationship to both social phenomena and literary development from the nineteenth century until today.

The first part of the course is an introduction to the concept of working-class literature, with a focus on how it has been used in different ways in different contexts. Thereafter, working-class literatures from different countries are studied and compared. The final part of the course is devoted to the writing of individual essays.

After completing the course, the student will:

1. display fundamental knowledge about the concept of working-class literature;
2. display fundamental knowledge about different kinds of working-class literature;
3. show the ability to analyze working-class literature in different contexts, and;
4. demonstrate fundamental understanding of central theoretical and historical debates in the academic study of working-class literature.

The main learning activities are: lectures, supervised independent study, the writing of analyses of literary texts with the point of departure in historical facts and theoretical concepts, peer review and on-line discussions.

The course is examined through three written assignments (2,5 credits each), and a written take-home exam (7,5 credits) in the form of a short essay. The first written assignment focuses on learning outcome 1. The second and third focus on learning outcomes 2 and 3. In order to pass the written assignments, the students must also do peer review of other students’ work. The take-home exam tests all the learning outcomes.

A student who fails the examination is given the opportunity to take two re-examinations on the same course content and with the same requirements. Students who have not finished the course, have the opportunity to take part in examinations the next time the course is offered.

• Coles, Nicholas and Paul Lauter. 2017. A History of American Working-Class Literature. Cambridge UP. 1–7, 232–263 and 376–405.
• Clark, Ben and Nick Hubble. 2018. Introduction. In Working-Class Writing: Theory and Practice. Palgrave McMillan. 1–6.
• Clark, Ben (ed.) 2025. The Routledge Companion to Working-Class Literature. Routledge.
• Karlsson, Mats. 2016. The Proletarian Literature Movement: Experiment and Experience. In Routledge Handbook of Modern Japanese Literature. Routledge. 111–124.
• Mkhize, Jabulani. 2010. Shades of Working-Class Writing: Realism and the Intertextual in La Guma's ‘In the Fog of the Seasons' End. 36.4
• Lennon, John and Magnus Nilsson (eds.). 2017 Working-Class Literature(s): Historical and International Perspectives. Stockholm UP.
• Nilsson. Magnus. 2019. ”Working-class comics? Proletarian self-reflexiveness in Mats Källblad’s graphic novel Hundra år i samma klass.” Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics 10.3 https://doi.org/10.1080/21504857.2018.1500383
• Nilsson, Magnus. 2014. Literature and Class: Aesthetical-Political Strategies in Modern Swedish Working-Class Literature. Humboldt-Universität. 18–26 and 115–158.
• Nilsson, Magnus and John Lennon. 2016. “Defining Working-Class Literature(s): A Comparative Approach Between U.S. Working-Class Studies and Swedish Literary History.” New Proposals 8.2, pp 39–61.
• Perera, Sonali. 2014. No Country: Working-Class Writing in the Age of Globalization. Columbia UP. Pp. 1–19.
• Pierse, Michael (ed.) 2017. A History of Irish Working-Class Writing. Cambridge UP. Pp. 1–36.
• Tenngart, Paul. 2019. “The Dislocated Vernacular in Translated Swedish Working-Class Fiction.” https://doi.org/10.1080/1369801X.2019.1659171
• Tenngart, Paul. 2016. “Local Labour, Cosmopolitan Toil: Geo-Cultural Dynamics in Swedish Working-Class Fiction.” Journal of World Literature 1.4, pp. 484–502. https://doi.org/10.1163/24056480-00104001
• Tokarczyk, Michell M. (ed.) 2011. Critical Approaches to American Working-Class Literature. Routledge. Pp. 1–13
• Wright, Rochelle. 1996. “Literature Democratized: Working-Class Writers of the 1930s”. In Lars G. Warme (ed.), A History of Swedish Literature. U of Nebraska P. Pp. 333–346.

Some literature will be provided via the course learning platform. Additional literature encompassing 200 pages may be added.

Malmö University provides students who participate in, or who have completed a course, with the opportunity to express their opinions and describe their experiences of the course by completing a course evaluation administered by the University. The University will compile and summarise the results of course evaluations. The University will also inform participants of the results and any decisions relating to measures taken in response to the course evaluations. The results will be made available to the students (HF 1:14).

If a course is no longer offered, or has undergone significant changes, the students must be offered two opportunities for re-examination based on the syllabus that applied at the time of registration, for a period of one year after the changes have been implemented.

If a student has a Learning support decision, the examiner has the right to provide the student with an adapted test, or to allow the student to take the exam in a different format.

The syllabus is a translation of a Swedish source text