Eric Schocket was an Associate Professor of American literature

American literature

American literature is the written or literary work produced in the area of the United States and its preceding colonies. For more specific discussions of poetry and theater, see Poetry of the United States and Theater in the United States. During its early history, America was a series of British...

 at Hampshire College

Hampshire College

Hampshire College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1965 as an experiment in alternative education, in association with four other colleges in the Pioneer Valley: Amherst College, Smith College, Mount Holyoke College, and the University of Massachusetts...

 in Amherst

Amherst, Massachusetts

Amherst is a town in Hampshire County, Massachusetts, United States in the Connecticut River valley. As of the 2010 census, the population was 37,819, making it the largest community in Hampshire County . The town is home to Amherst College, Hampshire College, and the University of Massachusetts...

, Massachusetts

Massachusetts

The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...

. He wrote primarily on issues of class. In Vanishing Moments: Class and American Literature (University of Michigan

University of Michigan

The University of Michigan is a public research university located in Ann Arbor, Michigan in the United States. It is the state's oldest university and the flagship campus of the University of Michigan...

 Press, 2006), Schocket examined the way in which class-conscious American literature (such as by Herman Melville, Rebecca Harding Davis, William Howells, and Langston Hughes

Langston Hughes

James Mercer Langston Hughes was an American poet, social activist, novelist, playwright, and columnist. He was one of the earliest innovators of the then-new literary art form jazz poetry. Hughes is best known for his work during the Harlem Renaissance...

) confronted and addressed the typical American denial of issues of social stratification.

Schocket received his BA from the University of California, Berkeley

University of California, Berkeley

The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...

, and his PhD in American Literature from Stanford University

Stanford University

The Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University or Stanford, is a private research university on an campus located near Palo Alto, California. It is situated in the northwestern Santa Clara Valley on the San Francisco Peninsula, approximately northwest of San...

. His other published articles include:

• "Proletarian Paperbacks: The Little Blue Books and Working-Class Culture"College Literature, 2002 Fall; 29 (4): 67-78. (journal article)
• "Redefining American Proletarian Literature: Mexican Americans and the Challenge to the Tradition of Radical Dissent" Journal of American & Comparative Cultures, 2001 Spring-Summer; 24 (1-2): 59-69. (journal article)
• "'Discovering Some New Race': Rebecca Harding Davis's 'Life in the Iron Mills' and the Literary Emergence of Working-Class Whiteness" PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, 2000 Jan; 115 (1): 46-59. (journal article)
• "Undercover Explorations of the 'Other Half'; Or, the Writer as Class Transvestite" Representations, 1998 Fall; 64: 109-33. (journal article)

After a months-long battle with leukemia, Eric Schocket died on September 3, 2006.

External links

• Eric Schocket Memorial Lecture Series http://www.hampshire.edu/hacu/9596.htm