Voices of Persuasion (Cambridge Studies in American Literature and Culture, Series Number 78)

In this innovative study, Michael Staub recasts 1930s cultural history by analysing those genres so characteristic of the Depression era: Staub argues that several thirties writers - precisely because of their encounters with disinherited peoples - anticipated the dilemmas poststructuralist theory would identify; an awareness of the ambiguousness of historical truth, and the impossibility of representing reality without being complicit in its distortion. New interpretations of such canonised authors as James Agee, John Dos Passos, Zora Neale Hurston, John G. Neihardt and Tille Olsen are coupled with critical discussions of previously little-known works of ethnography, journalism, oral history and polemical fiction. This book will interest all who are concerned with the problematic relationship between representation and social reality and their mutual inextricability. The 1930s concern with recording the speaking voice is virtually unrivaled in American cultural history. In that decade, scores of writers traveled into the field to record the voices of African Americans, American Indians, migrant workers, tenant farmers, and immigrants. In this innovative study, Michael E. Staub recasts 1930s cultural history by analyzing those genres so characteristic of the Depression era: genres that relied on a presumed relationship to real experience for their effect and that sought to persuade their audiences of urgent political truths. Demonstrating the seldom-discussed multicultural diversity of Depression-era literature, and paying special attention to narrative strategies for representing the speech of disinherited and minority peoples, Staub shows how several writers from the thirties anticipated dilemmas and perspectives currently engaging cultural studies critics. New interpretations of such canonized authors as James Agee, John Dos Passos, Zora Neale Hurston, John G. Neihardt, and Tillie Olsen are coupled with critical discussions of previously little-known works of ethnography, journalism, oral history, and polemical fiction. Voices of Persuasion sheds new light on the relationship between art and politics in the 1930s. It will interest all who are concerned with the problematic relationship between representation and social reality and their mutual inextricability.

In this innovative study, Michael Staub recasts 1930s cultural history by analyzing those genres characteristic of the Depression era: Staub argues that several thirties writers were aware of the ambiguousness of historical truth, and the impossibility of representing reality without being complicitous in its distortion. New interpretations of such canonized authors as James Agee, John Dos Passos, Zora Neale Hurston, John G. Neihardt, and Tillie Olson are coupled with critical discussions of previously little-known works of ethnography, journalism, oral history and polemical fiction.

staub Recasts 1930s Cultural History, Demonstrating The Seldom-discussed Multicultural Diversity Of Those Genres So Characteristic Of The Period: Ethnography, Documentary, Journalism And Polemical Fiction.