CHR Fellow Talk: PhD Candidate Severin Mueller (Cultural Studies), "Lessons from the Past? Exploring the Legacies of the Labor Movement among West Virginia Educators"

Tuesday, April 23, 2024 12:00 PM to 1:00 PM EDT
Hybrid Event in Horizon Hall 6325 and on Zoom

In this project, Severin aims to explore the role of public education in the maelstrom of financial capitalism and the crisis of health. Sparked by the political intensity of the 2018 statewide teachers’ strike in West Virginia and my historical interest in the legacies of the labor movement in this noted hotbed of labor militancy in the United States, his dissertation research examines the occupational field of education, emerging from the shadows of the monocultural focus on coal, to the center of the debate revolving around a more democratic reorientation of society. In particular, through insights gleaned from interviews with local educators I hope to better understand the philosophical and cultural bearings on public education in the Mountain State. Over the course of his fellowship, Severin aimed to further explore the experiences among West Virginia educators with austerity, the decimation wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic and the chances for repair offered by a fresh groundswell of the historical conflict between labor and capital.