230632 Culture in Crisis: The 1930s in American Arts (S) (WiSe 2010/2011)

The 1930s were one of the most tumultuous periods in the history of the United States. It was a decade characterized by a fundamental contradiction: a nation defined by capitalist mythologies (the U.S. as a “land of opportunity” and home of the “American dream”) experienced the total collapse of its capitalist economy—and it was by no means certain that that economy could be resurrected. Add to this a massive drought that devastated the nation’s agricultural sector, turning family farms in the Midwest into howling clouds of dust and forcing mass life-or-death migrations to the West. Add to this also the daily sight of long breadlines in the cities and a proliferation of homeless encampments near downtowns across America, and it makes sense why president Franklin Roosevelt said there was “nothing to fear but fear itself.” It was also the “Red Decade,” a time when many prominent intellectuals believed that the United States should be rebuilt along communist lines. And, of course, it was a decade that ended with the onset of a second world war, which America was torpedoed into in 1941.
This course will examine artistic attempts to make sense of, and, more importantly, intervene in this profoundly unstable time, looking at literature, film, painting, and music from the period.