American modernism and depression documentary
By: Jeff Allred.
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2009
Place of publication: Oxford
Language: eng
Number of pages: 272
ISBN-13: 9780195335682
Subjects: Caldwell, Erskine, -- 1903-1987; Agee, James, -- 1909-1955; Wright, Richard, -- 1908-1960; American literature -- 20th century -- History and criticism; Documentary photography -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Modernism (Literature) -- United States; Literature and photography -- United States -- History -- 20th century; Photography -- Political aspects -- United States
Description: "Jeff Allred draws on a range of seminal works to illustrate the convergence of modernism and documentary, two forms often regarded as unrelated. Whereas critics routinely look to James Agee and Walker Evans' Let Us Now Praise Famous Men as the sole instance of the modernist documentary book, Allred turns to such works as Richard Wright's scathing 12 Million Black Voices, and the oft-neglected You Have Seen Their Faces by Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White to open up the critical playing field. And rather than focusing on the ethos of Progressivism and/or the politics and aesthetics of the New Deal, Allred emphasizes the centrality of Life magazine to the consolidation of a novel cultural form." "In a series of provocative and thoughtful case studies, Allred reveals how documentary texts invite readers to engage in a speculative practice of aesthetic construction. Thus the genre brought an increasing awareness of the nation's artistic vitality as well as its social failings. Carefully argued and rigorously researched, American Modernism and Depression Documentary establishes the documentary book as a major form that constitutes a critical legacy of both modernism and Depression-era culture."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Introduction: Plausible fictions of the real; title: From 'culture' to 'cultural work': literature and labor between the wars; title: The road to somewhere: locating knowledge in Erskine Caldwell and Margaret Bourke-White's You have seen their faces (1937); title: Moving violations: stasis and mobility in James Agee's and Walker Evans's Let us now praise famous men (1941); title: From eye to we: Richard Wright's 12 million black voices, documentary, and pedagogy; title: 'We Americans': Henry Luce, life, and the mind-guided camera; title: Epilogue: depression documentary and the knot of history.