Voices of Persuasion [Paperback]

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.This innovative study demonstrates the seldom-discussed multicultural diversity of Depression-era literature and recasts 1930s cultural history by analysing those genres characteristic of the period. New interpretations of such canonised 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.This innovative study demonstrates the seldom-discussed multicultural diversity of Depression-era literature and recasts 1930s cultural history by analysing those genres characteristic of the period. New interpretations of such canonised 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.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.Preface; 1. Spoken testimony, Unwritten History; 2. You won't hear it nicely John Dos Passos and James Agee; 3. Telling native American history John Neihardt, William Benson and Ruth Underhill; 4. Talking black, talking back Zora Neale Hurston; 5. Giving the people voilC­