Sherry Linkon
Sherry Lee Linkon is a Professor of English, Writing, and American Studies.
Trained in American Studies, her research and teaching cover a wide range of fields, including American literature and culture, interdisciplinary teaching and learning, working-class studies, and writing studies. From 1997 to 2012, she was Co-Director of the Center for Working-Class Studies at Youngstown State University, where she also directed the American Studies Program. From 2012 to 2022, she was the director of the Georgetown University Writing Program. Her most recent book, The Half-Life of Deindustrialization: Working-Class Writing about Economic Restructuring (Michigan, 2018) examines contemporary American working-class literature and media. With John Russo, she co-authored Steeltown USA: Work and Memory in Youngstown (Kansas, 2002) and co-edited New Working-Class Studies (Cornell, 2005). In addition to work on deindustrialization and working-class culture, Linkon does research on student learning in the humanities and on social class in U.S. higher education. She was the founding President of the Working-Class Studies Association and editor of Working-Class Perspectives. She is currently a co-investigator with the international research network, Deindustrialization and the Politics of Our Time, studying race, gender, and representations of deindustrialization in the U.S.