I have the following class:

public abstract class MyClass<T extends Object> {

    protected T createNewFromData(Reader reader){
        GSON.fromJSON(reader,T.class); // T.class isn't allowed :(
    }
}

How do I pass a Class<T> instance into there? Is there some wierd and wacky work around?

Is there a way to get a Class<T> reference other than from a pre-instantiated Object of type T? It won't let me do this either:

T t = new T();
Class<T> klass = t.class;

ANSWER BELOW

Thanks to the accepted answer, here is the solution:

Type type = new TypeToken<T>(){}.getType();
return gson.fromJson(reader, type);