• Austenfeld Thomas

• Austenfeld Thomas

We associate the "roaring twenties" with the Jazz Age in America, the Harlem Renaissance, and the dominance of American expatriates in literary history.  The forties, by contrast, seem characterized by World War Two and the incipient economic recovery of the fifties.  But the nineteen-thirties have somehow been forgotten.  Yet between the stock market crash of 1929 and the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, a decade full of literary and cultural surprises awaits us.  The Depression spawned immortal texts like Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath but also backward-looking narratives like Mitchell's Gone With the Wind. The Federal Writers Project spurred the creation of a slave narrative collection, a documentation of poverty in the American heartland, and interest in folklore and folkways (Zora Neale Hurston, who was trained as an anthropologist, published Their Eyes Were Watching God  in 1937). Radio became ubiquitous, Hollywood turned itself into a major cultural force.  Many American intellectuals flirted with communism up until the Stalin purges that begin in late 1936.

Numerous short texts will be provided on MOODLE.  Longer works will be announced closer to the start of the semester. Excerpts from key movies made in the nineteen-thirties will be integrated into the lectures: some films will be screened in full on selected evenings.

Readings to be announced near the start of the fall term: check my website!