Kathryn Hegarty

Mapping Interventions in the Classed Subject Kathryn Hegarty

Being working-class and building a fulfilling interior life which allows self-actualisation is a fraught and disjointed experience for many working-class women. This is particularly the case for those of us who sought ?something more?, some unnamed aspiration we knew we would recognise when it happened. In order to name that thing, (education? scholarship?) there stretches an un-languaged chasm and a felt experience which is potentially so injurious it is unknowable in the self. An examination of the growing literature on working-class felt experience and interiority demonstrates the limitations of existing critical instances, both marxist and feminist. The increasing theoretical concern shown for subjectivities has not been extended to class identity. This thesis examines the oft-described emotional trajectory of many working-class women in universities. By engaging reflexively this unlanguaged emotional space and applying a class reading to the subject positions which create and represent aspiration, I seek to propose renewed critical instances for fictional (and theoretical) representations.