Real folks

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Whitney, A. D. T. (Adeline Dutton Train), 1824-1906.

Series:

e-Duke books scholarly collection.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

American literature--20th century--History and criticism.

American literature.

Literature and folklore--United States--History--20th century.

Literature and folklore.

Folklore--United States--History--20th century.

Folklore.

American literature--African American authors--History and criticism.

United States--History--1933-1945.

United States.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (338 p.)

Place of Publication:

Boston : J.R. Osgood, 1872.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

During the Great Depression, people from across the political spectrum sought to ground American identity in the rural know-how of "the folk." At the same time, certain writers, filmmakers, and intellectuals combined documentary and satire into a hybrid genre that revealed the folk as an anxious product of corporate capitalism, rather than an antidote to commercial culture. In Real Folks, Sonnet Retman analyzes the invention of the folk as figures of authenticity in the political culture of the 1930s, as well as the critiques that emerged in response. Diverse artists and intellectuals-including the novelists George Schuyler and Nathanael West, the filmmaker Preston Sturges, and the anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston-illuminated the fabrication and exploitation of folk authenticity in New Deal and commercial narratives. They skewered the racist populisms that prevented interracial working-class solidarity, prophesized the patriotic function of the folk for the nation-state in crisis, and made their readers and viewers feel self-conscious about the desire for authenticity. By illuminating the subversive satirical energy of the 1930s, Retman identifies a rich cultural tradition overshadowed until now by the scholarly focus on Depression-era social realism.

Contents:

"A combination madhouse, burlesque show and Coney Island" : the color question in George Schuyler's Black no more

"Inanimate hideosities" : the burlesque of racial capitalism in Nathanael West's A cool million

"The last American frontier" : mapping the folk in the Federal Writers' Project's Florida : a guide to the southernmost state

"Ah gives myself de privilege to go" : navigating the field and the folk in Zora Neale Hurston's Mules and men

"Am I laughing"? : burlesque incongruities of genre, gender, and audience in Preston Sturges's Sullivan's travels

Afterpiece : the Coen brothers' Ol'-timey blues in O brother, where art thou?

Notes:

Description based on print version record

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/legalcode

Description based on print version record; resource not viewed.

ISBN:

9786613303806

9781283303804

1283303809

9780822393894

0822393891

Access Restriction:

Unrestricted online access