Federation Magazine Volume 5

This volume of FEDeration, "Class, Culture, and Identity Issues" opens with an editorial focused on the mobility of class, including a definition of class as a "complex and ambiguous...set of cultural affinities." Featured articles include Julie Ward's "American Dates," which recounts her visit to the United States where she examined oral history practices and the role of American imperialism in shaping a particular version of historical memory about the war. Mel Cherry's "The Unknown Women?" highlights the existence of middle-class ideology in the canon of women's literature and calls for more representation of working class voices. Christine Hardy's "Popular Arts and Political Identity" presents research on arts intervention in working class areas that discounts the popularly held belief that working class artists do not incorporate political commentary in their work. Dave Lee's piece positions working class autobiography as a political intervention in literary and cultural representation. Nick Pollard's "Red Tapes" discusses his experience collecting oral histories from those involved in radical politics. Books reviewed include *Another Province, New Chinese Writing from London,* *Barbary Coast Revisited a book by Ordsall about Ordsall-- the heart of Salford,* *Ridge Walking, Lesbian Writing* by Cher March and Hilary Bichovsky (aka The March Hares), *Bexhill Voices,* Fred Gray (ed.), *Capsule,* Tanya Peixoto (ed.), *Hermeitis Trismegisti De Castigatione Animae Libellus/Reproof of the Soul, Transmitted into Haiku* by Vanilla Beer, *Progeny of Air* by Kwame Dawes, *Beastly Beauty* by Andrew Butcher, *No Limits: Urban Short Stories,* *Looking for Trouble* by Cath Staincliffe, *Popular Oral HIstory and Literacy, a Handbook* by Mary Breen and David Sobel, *Christmas Then and Now,* Julie Ward (ed), *Modecate Shuffle* by Brendan Wilson, Sav Kyriacou, and Annika Vieweg, *The Tiger Bay Story* by Neil MC Sinclair. Poems include Mark Goddard's "Humanity," Janice Day's "BT Waiting Room," Maureen Reason's "It's All in the Game," Gordon Sturrock's "A Meditation on a Hakagwa Print," and Elizabeth Schofield's "Life and It's Like That." New books advertised include: *Growing Up in the Outbacks* by Jane Fernando Smith and *Pitwork, Politics, and Poetry: The Collected Songs of Jock Purdon.*