Feminized: A New Literary History of Women's Work

Contemporary work is often described as 'feminized' - meaning that the conditions which were once primarily associated with women workers are now relevant across the work force. These conditions include temporary, informal and flexible work contracts, care work, emotional labour, and work that takes place in the home. This project will study twentieth-century literary representations of women's work in anglophone literature, arguing that the historical literary engagement with this topic can be used to develop theorisations of today's 'feminized' work world. The project will bring together literature from diverse anglophone contexts to show how literature from the past can enrich understandings of contemporary work lives.