Jess Rafalko

Professional Bio

My research considers representations of labor and expressions of grievance in postwar American fiction, particularly by writers of color, to whom anger is often foreclosed as a legitimate response to systemic injustice. I draw equally on critical traditions in literary studies, creative writing, literary sociology, and labor studies to show how writers contend on the page—through fictional form itself—with the same structural impediments facing all workers under late capitalism.

I'm also a fiction writer currently (interminably) at work on a novel.