English 189 - Fall, 2016

Seminar in Literary Studies

Topic: Literature of the Great Depression

Class Information

Instructor: Stratton, Matthew
CRN: 53676
Time: TR 1:40-3:00
Location: 308 Voorhies

Description

The Great Depression of the 1930s looms uncomfortably large in the U.S. national imaginary: economic collapse, disillusioned revolutionaries, hopeful reformers, and vituperative conservatives seem both distantly past and disconcertingly familiar. This course will focus on "depressing fictions" of the period: realist, naturalist, and modernist prose fiction that examines the psychological, physical, economic, and political relationships of individuals and groups to one other, to the nation, and to the world in a period of profound crisis. We will also encounter a variety of different forms of writing and representation -- poetry, reportage, photography, film, and music -- in order to situate and understand the particularity of fiction as it was read in the 1930s and as we experience it today.

Grading

Participation
Response Papers
Two Essays
Final Exam

Texts

Unpossessed, Tess Slesinger
Whose Names Are Unknown, Sanora Babb
Uncle Tom's Children, Richard Wright
Now in November, Josephine Johnson
The Big Money, John Dos Passos
Tobacco Road, Erskine Caldwell