Poor Things

“Lennard J. Davis’s Poor Things provocatively argues that those who write about poor people but are not or have not themselves been poor are governed by various tropes and protocols that serve to depict the poor as revolting and ultimately less human than the rich. The implications of the argument go well beyond the nineteenth-century focus that Davis adopts, having resonances for fields such as economics, anthropology, sociology, and others. Poor Things is a masterpiece of intellectual suggestiveness.” -- Ato Quayson, Jean G. and Morris M. Doyle Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies, Stanford University
“Lennard J. Davis has little to no faith in the ability of middle-class writers to write about poor people without relying on stereotypes. Using a personal narrative, so important to working-class academic writing, allows Davis to convincingly argue that a purely structural class critique is insufficient because such critique typically overlooks the realities of the lived experience of poverty. Therein lie the stakes of his book: that novels written by people in poverty can act as a cultural brake on the social dynamics by which the moneyed and the impoverished are, right now, pulled so violently apart.” -- Matt Brim, author of * Poor Queer Studies: Confronting Elitism in the University *
"Whether considering the hypocrisy of 'poornography' or the common limitations of well-meaning characterizations of the impoverished, Davis's range of authentic criticism is impressive. . . . Poor Things provides a deep reflection and the start of a conversation that could go on forever." -- Theodore Bain * Journal of American Culture *