I’ve thought a lot about social class. Classism is a new one on me, but recent information suggests I might have been missing something. My parents were very class conscious. Dad, a bus driver, was fiercely insistent that working class people should never forget where they came from. Mum, a teacher, was less strident (about…

This, apparently, is what President Joe Biden thinks I’ll be entering when I head to the US tomorrow. It’s an intriguing phrase: so many questions raised by half a dozen words. Obviously, what he really means is “Vote Democrat on 5th November”. But he’s also alluding to the deeper national malaise. I try to keep…

The Rutgers Living-Learning Community (HLLC) in Newark is where I’m heading next week. I’ll be helping lead a course called “Local Citizenship in a Global World”, focused on issues around social justice and activism. In anticipation, I’m trying to find out as much as I can about what goes on in and around HLLC. I’m…

With a week before I head there, I’m frantically reading as much as I can about Newark. It’s not a place with a huge literary reputation, but I’m learning quite a lot. My first port of call was Philip Roth’s “American Pastoral“, often included in the canon of great 20th century American fiction. Roth was…

I’m trying to avoid using the J word, but my “journey” to Newark began eight miles east, in 1992. I was an intern with the Jersey City public housing authority, a seminal experience. It shaped my thinking about housing and cemented my fascination with the US. I have visited Newark occasionally, but I don’t know…