YOUNGSTOWN YSU hosts conference on working-class studies

The event features various community activities.
YOUNGSTOWN -- The sixth biennial Conference of Working-Class Studies begins today at Youngstown State University with a discussion on "Rethinking the Working Class."
More than 150 presenters from 28 states and five countries are scheduled to attend the conference, which runs through Saturday on the YSU campus.
The event is co-sponsored by the Center for Working-Class Studies at YSU and the Race, Gender and Class Project of Southern University of New Orleans. The conference theme is "Working-Class Studies: Intersections with Race, Gender and Sexuality."
Delivering today's keynote speech, at 6 p.m., is Bonnie Thornton Dill, director of the Consortium on Race, Gender and Ethnicity at the University of Maryland. She will be in the Ohio Room of Kilcawley Center on campus.
Other speakers include:
UEvelyn Hu-DeHart, director of the Center for the Study of Ethnicity in America at Brown University, discussing globalization from race, class and gender perspectives at 10:30 a.m. Thursday in the Chestnut Room at Kilcawley Center.
UMichael Honey, a professor of African-American, labor and ethnic studies at the University of Washington at Tacoma, discussing personal narratives of black workers at 10:30 a.m. Friday in the Chestnut Room.
UAgymah Kamau, a Caribbean-born novelist at the University of Oklahoma, discussing "The Writer in His Society" at 7 p.m. Saturday at the McDonough Museum.
Besides the speakers, the conference will include formal and informal presentations and round-table discussions, performances, film screenings, poetry readings, art exhibitions and community activities.
On Saturday morning, the conference will feature workshops on documentary films, cross-class interactions and teaching, as well as three community tours led by local experts. For more information, contact Patty LaPresta at (330) 941-2978 or pmlapresta@ysu.edu. A full schedule is available at www.as.ysu.edu/~cwcs.