April 10, 2026
3-5pm
West Hall 411

The recovery of Marxism, class analysis, and class politics in the past generation, while widely and rightly celebrated, has been marked by important forms of disciplinary and methodological unevenness. Some forms of inquiry have led, others have lagged; some methods and traditions have recovered, others languished. In particular, the conceptualization of class has been dominated by a sociological approach, characterized by a degree of scientism, positivism, and even methodological individualism. All these characteristics have things to recommend them. But they do not exhaust the Marxist tradition, particularly in relation to social class, and they come with their own risks. This talk will engage with what it would mean to resurrect the tradition in the study of social class: what would be required, what reckoning with past debates is needed, and what possibilities of understanding our moment might become available.

Gabriel Winant an Associate Professor of History at the University of Chicago. He is a historian of labor, political economy, capitalism, and the welfare state. The core of his research program is to interrogate changing forms of social class in modern societies. He studies how economic production shapes the composition of classes and the formation of state institutions; and how this shaping is mediated by the articulations of race, gender, sexuality, and disability.