John Steinbeck: Social Critic and Ecologist

FAIN: ES-231045-15

San Jose State University Research Foundation (San Jose, CA 95112-5569)
Susan Shillinglaw (Project Director: February 2015 to April 2017)

A three-week institute for twenty-seven school teachers on John Steinbeck as a novelist, social critic, and ecologist.

The Summer Institute will examine why John Steinbeck remains relevant as a novelist, social critic, and ecologist, and endures as a voice of twenty-first century American values and ideas. The Institute's target primary audience is middle and high school teachers of a diversity of subjects, including English, History and Science (elementary teachers also welcome). The project objective is to demonstrate new ways in which Steinbeck can be presented as a central figure in these subjects, and how his work continues to address the complexity of the American populace. An important element will be to consider the impact of ecological thinking on several of Steinbeck's major works, and how historical and contemporary agricultural and fishing industries influenced these works as well as today's society.