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AbstractThis article examines how the field of labor and working-class history has conceptualized class and assesses theories of class that can help us develop maximally illuminating concepts. Labor historians, particularly those whose work employs a transnational, gender, or racial lens of analysis, have advanced our understanding of how working people's lives are shaped by class. By connecting that scholarship to class theory, the article argues for reconceptualizing class to focus on the complex ways capitalism generates class relationships, embedding race, gender, and other historical dynamics within its formative parameters. It relies on work by Tithi Bhattacharya and Stuart Hall to articulate a specific vision of class relations under capitalism. Finally, the article concludes with praxis by applying Hall's and Bhattacharya's insights to the challenges academic knowledge workers face today amid the crisis of higher education, which is growing more pressing as a result of the economic disaster related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It concludes by addressing how our conceptualizations of class could shape efforts to build broad solidarities among knowledge workers in higher education.

On June 21, residents of Fremont, a small meatpacking town just outside Omaha, Nebraska, voted by 57 percent to deny work and shelter to undocumented immigrants. Why Fremont, Nebraska, and why now? Some observers, not knowing the Fremont measure was cooked up by the same coalition that passed Arizona's law—Kansas City lawyer Kris Kobach, for example, was involved in both measures—are calling it a homegrown, heartland, good ole Nebraskan approach to solving the immigration problem. The fact is that numerous dynamics have combined to make immigration particularly explosive in Fremont: ambitious politicians across Nebraska and nationwide; widespread economic turmoil combined with fast-paced globalization; and neoliberal policies that limit governments' abilities, both in Mexico and the United States, to respond to these widespread transformations. Tying all of it together is the global journey of one transformative commodity: corn. Following Nebraska corn as it travels across the United States, to foreign countries like Mexico and back to meatpacking plants in Nebraska, illuminates the forces that made immigration a hot-button issue in Fremont.