Georgetown University

In the United States, the phrase “Great Depression” calls to mind an unusually vivid mix of images: itinerant sharecroppers and ramshackle houses, unemployment lines and labor strikes, fireside chats and WPA murals.  Drawing on a wide variety of source materials, this course examines the Depression Era in myth and reality.  It also considers why the period retains a powerful hold on national memory in our era of economic uncertainty.  Writings by Carlos Bulosan, William Faulkner, Zora Neale Hurston, Tillie Olsen, and Richard Wright; photographs by Margaret Bourke-White, Walker Evans, and Dorothea Lange; films by Busby Berkeley, Frank Capra, Howard Hawks, Pare Lorentz, and Preston Sturges—among many others.  Students interested in interdisciplinary approaches to American culture and history are particularly encouraged to enroll.