Linkon to discuss steel-industry collapse

Staff report

LIBERTY

Georgetown University Professor Sherry Linkon will discuss the steel-industry collapse and the subsequent legacy of deindustrialization at 10 a.m. Saturday in the meeting room of Kravitz Deli, 3135 Belmont Ave., for the William Holmes McGuffey Historical Society.

The program is open to the public. Reservations are suggested; walk-ins will be seated based on availability. Call Richard S. Scarsella, society chairman, at 330-726-8277. Admission is $6 ($5 for society members)

Sherry Lee Linkon is a professor of English and director of the writing program at Georgetown University.

Trained in American Studies, her research and teaching cover a wide range of fields, including American literature and culture, interdisciplinary teaching and learning, working-class studies and writing studies. From 1997 to 2012, she was co-director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University, where she also directed the American Studies Program.

Her most recent book, “The Half-Life of Deindustrialization: Working-Class Writing about Economic Restructuring,” (Michigan, 2018) examines contemporary American working-class literature and media. With John Russo, she co-authored “Steeltown USA: Work and Memory in Youngstown” (Kansas, 2002) and co-edited “New Working-Class Studies” (Cornell, 2005).

In addition to work on deindustrialization and working-class culture, Linkon does research on student learning in the humanities and on social class in U.S. higher education. She was the founding president of the Working-Class Studies Association, and she edits a weekly blog, Working-Class Perspectives

Linkon earned a Ph.D. at the University of Minnesota, an M.A. at University of Denver, and a B. A., at Macalester College. She is the recipient of the Ethnic Society of Youngstown, Lifetime Achievement Award.