In an America politically divided, in a time of economic upheaval and environmental catastrophe, stories were told to make sense of the times. One of the greatest such stories (of its day and ours) is John Steinbeck's 1939 masterpiece, The Grapes of Wrath. The story of the Joad family and their migration down the Mother Road from Dust Bowl Oklahoma to the purported promised land of California spoke to readers and to other artists, then and now.

In this class, we will discuss the novel and the John Ford film version, as well as musical adaptations by artists from Woody Guthrie to Bruce Springsteen and Rage Against the Machine. We will also read a long-forgotten novel, Sonara Babb’s Whose Names are Unknown, written by the woman whose research into the migrant camps of California was (without her knowledge or consent) shared with Steinbeck.
Six Sessions: $235/$210. Led by Bill Savage