Uses of Literacy Now

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Archive on 4: Uses of Literacy Now

09/09/2017

BBC Radio 4 - Archive on 4, Uses of Literacy Now

The Uses of Literacy - what can a book on class written 60 years ago tell us about today?

4 Extra Debut. DJ Taylor explores what can Richard Hoggart’s Uses Of Literacy, published in 1957, tell us about class today? From 2017.

Writer and critic DJ Taylor assesses Richard Hoggart's masterpiece The Uses of Literacy.

This colossal book inspired a slew of post-war histories, as well as Coronation Street and the poet Tony Harrison's 'Them and Uz'. It was the book that inspired Alan Bennett to write. 

Hoggart was born into great poverty in Leeds and wrote movingly about this early life and the people - mainly women - who inspired him. 

A scholarship boy, he revealed the emotional consequences of moving from one class to another. He also offered a searing critique of the burgeoning mass media, expressing his concerns that the new literacy was in danger of being swamped by a popular press that carefully suppressed anything liable to encourage readers to think about the environment they inhabit, rather than simply wallow in its material comforts.

Contributors include:  author of Estates and Respectable, Lynsey Hanley, historian David Kynaston, novelist David Lodge and playwright Alan Bennett.

Producer: Nicola Swords.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in September 2017.

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