Seminar: The Great Depression and the New Deal: responding to catastrophe.

Seminar/essay question:

How were US writers, journalists and broadcasters affected by the Depression and the New Deal? Analyse one or two examples of their responses.

KEY TEXTS:

Steinbeck, John (1939) The Grapes of Wrath. Various editions. This classic novel deals with the impact of the Depression on agricultural workers, and the human cost of forced migration in search of work. John Ford’s acclaimed film version is available in the LCC library. Steinbeck’s Of mice and men is also relevant

Taylor, David (2009) Soul of a people: the WPA Writers' Project uncovers Depression America. John Wiley & Sons. Available to LCC as an e-book. (NB participants in this project included many writers who later became famous – e.g.John Steinbeck, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Studs Terkel, Jim Thompson and John Cheever.)

Galbraith, J K (1975) The Great Crash 1929. Harmondsworth: Penguin.

BACKGROUND TEXTS:

Bernstein, M A (1989) The Great Depression 1929-39.

Brinkley, A.(1999)Culture and politics in the Great Depression. Baylor University Press.

Brogan, H (2001) The Penguin history of the USA. Penguin.

Davis, Mike (1986) Prisoners of the American Dream. London: Verso.

Dickstein, Morris (2009) Dancing in the dark: a cultural history of the Great Depression. W.W. Norton

Dos Passos, John (1930-36) USA. Various editions. (It would take a considerable amount of time to read this entire trilogy of novels, but it is very much worth looking at for its experimental combination of documentary and fictional techniques and for its rich portrait of US society in the first third of the 20th Century.)

Edsforth, R.(1999)The New Deal. Blackwell.

Galbraith, J. K. (1993) American capitalism. NJ: Transaction Publishers,

Gordon, Linda (2009) Dorothea Lange: a life beyond limits. W.W. Norton. Hearne, C. R. (1972) The American Dream in the Great Depression.

Jones, Gavin (2008) American hungers: the problem of poverty In U.S. literature, 1840-1945. Princeton University Press.,

Liebovich, L.W. (1994) Bylines in despair: Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression and the US news media. Greenwood.

Pearson, Drew (1931) The man who stayed too long. Reprinted in Shapiro, B (ed) (2003) Shaking the foundations: 200 years of investigative journalism in America. New York: Nation Books

Pells, Richard H. (1984) Radical visions and American dreams: culture and social thought in the Depression years. Wesleyan University Press.

Reagan, Patrick D. (2000) Designing a new America: the origins of New Deal planning. Amherst: University of Mass. Press.

Roosevelt, Franklin D. (1976) Four freedoms speech 1941.Taurus Press.

Week 9

Thursday 10.3.11

Lecture: The bbc and public service journalism (Ian Hoare) Seminar: Nazism and its propaganda

Seminar/essay question:

Briefly analyse the role of propaganda; then assess the importance of Hitler’s propaganda methods in establishing the Nazi party in power and gaining support for his government’s policies.

KEY TEXTS:

Jowett, Garth and O’Donnell, Victoria. (1999) Propaganda and persuasion (Chapter five). London: Sage.

Welch, David. (2002) The Third Reich: politics and propaganda. London: Routledge.

Welch, David ( ed.) (1983) Nazi propaganda: the power and the limitations. New Jersey: Barnes and Noble.

Zeman, Z A B. (1973) Nazi propaganda. 2^nd edition. Oxford University Press. (Out of print – photocopies available)

BACKGROUND TEXTS:

Bergmeier, Horst.(1997) Hitler’s airwaves: the inside story of Nazi radio broadcasting and propaganda swing. Yale Univ. Press.

Brustein, W. (1998) The logic of evil: the social origins of the Nazi Party. Yale Univ. Press.

Burleigh, Michael (2001) The Third Reich: a new history. Pan.

Evans, Richard J. (2004) The coming of the Third Reich. Penguin.

Feuchtwanger, E J. (1995) From Weimar to Hitler: Germany 1918 -1933. Macmillan.

Gellately, Robert (2001) Backing Hitler: consent and coercion in Nazi Germany. OUP. Gilbert, M. (2002) A history of the 20^th Century. London: Harper Collins.

Hale, Oran J. (1964) The captive press in the Third Reich. NJ: Princeton University Press.

Hobsbawm, Eric (1995) The age of extremes: the short 20^th Century 1914-1991. Abacus.

Hoffman, H and Picker, H (1974)The Hitler phenomenon. David and Charles.

Kershaw, Ian (2001) Hitler 1936-1945: nemesis. Penguin.

Kershaw, Ian (2001) Hitler 1889-1936: hubris. Penguin.

Kershaw, Ian (2001) Hitler: image and reality in the Third Reich. Oxford.

Mazower, Mark (1999) Dark continent: Europe’s 20^th Century. London: Penguin.

Peukert, Detlev (1993) The Weimar Republic. Hill and Wang.

Reuth, Ralf (1995) Goebbels: The life of Joseph Goebbels, the Mephistophelean genius of Nazi propaganda. Constable.

Taylor, Richard. (1998) Film propaganda: Soviet Russia and Nazi Germany. I B Tauris.

Week 10

Thursday 17.3.11

Lecture: The history of periodicals (Sue Dawson)