SEMINAR: Working Class Culture in the Central Valley: Dorothea Lange, the Great Depression’s most famous photographer, and her husband, Paul Taylor documented the plight of California’s dispossessed, culminating in 1939 in American Exodus: A Record of Human Erosion.” The Common Ground Faculty Cohort will read Jan Goggan’s scholarly work on California’s developing New Deal narrative and discuss her take on this photographic expose of immigrant suffering and how it informed working class culture as it developed in the Central Valley. Key Questions: How does the experience of migration to California’s Central Valley influence one’s sense of identity, particularly immigrant and refugee populations from a stunning array of ethno-cultural backgrounds?  What do Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor learn as they document the disposed of California’s Central Valley?  How does photographic journalism alter the way a group imagines its’ collective identity?  MJC Faculty Organizer: Chad Redwing.

LECTURE: March 2, 2016 from 3-5 at U.C. Merced
Lecture with Jan Goggans, U.C. Merced, Associate Professor, School of Social Sciences, Humanities and Arts and Ma Vang, U.C. Presidents Postdoctoral Fellow, Assistant Professor, U.C. Merced.

YOUTUBE VIDEOS – Dr. Jan Goggans, Dr. Ma Vang, Dr. Susan Shillinglaw – October 21, 2016 Conference

1. JAN GOGGANS (UC MERCED) (15 min) – VOICING THE UNVOICED – DOROTHY LANGE – CENTRAL VALLEY, CALIF

2.  MA VANG (UC MERCED) (18 min) – WRITING ON THE RUN: HMONG-AMERICAN LITERATURE

3. SUSAN SHILLINGLAW (STEINBECK MUSEUM/SJSU) (18 min) – EVOKING PLACE THROUGH LITERATURE – CENTRAL VALLEY, CALIF 

POWERPOINTS (pptx) - Dr Jan Goggans (UCM) and Dr. Ma Vang (UCM)

1.  JAN GOGGANS – voicing the unvoiced (pptx)

2.  MA VANG – Writing on the Run (pptx)

CURRICULAR MODULES: Curricular modules including Working Class Culture in the Central Valley

DISCUSSION: March 16, 2016 from 3-5  Modesto Junior College, Performing and Media Arts Center (PAC), East Campus, Room 243
Seminar discussion with the following readings: Jan Goggans, California on the Breadlines: Dorothea Lange, Paul Taylor, and the Making of a New Deal Narrative (U of California P, 2010); Raymond Winter. Hunger and Homelessness in California’s Central Valley (CreateSpace, 2013); Dorothea Lange and Paul Taylor, American Exodus:  A Record of Human Erosion (1939).