Skip to main content
SUPPORT HSS
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
CONTACT US
Caltech Logo
Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences
  • About HSS
    • HSS Year in Review
    • Honors and Awards
    • Job Opportunities
    • Contact Us
  • People
    • Professorial Faculty
    • Emeritus Faculty
    • Lecturers and Other Faculty
    • Postdoctoral Instructors
    • Postdoctoral Scholars
    • Graduate Students
    • Visiting Faculty and Associates
    • Staff
  • Research
    • Humanities Research
    • Social Sciences Research
    • Postdoctoral Programs
  • Undergraduate Studies
  • Graduate Studies
    • Social Sciences PhD Program
    • Social and Decision Neuroscience PhD Program
    • HSS Graduate Courses
    • Job Market Candidates
    • Graduate Programs Alumni
    • HSS Course Policies Open HSS Course Policies Submenu
      • Avoiding Plagiarism
      • Use of Generative AI
  • News & Events
    • HSS Calendar
    • News
    • Seminars and Conferences
    • Honors and Awards
  • Diversity
Open search form
Menu Main Menu
Close
  • About HSS Click here to open the "About HSS" Submenu
  • People Click here to open the "People" Submenu
  • Research Click here to open the "Research" Submenu
  • Undergraduate Studies
  • Graduate Studies Click here to open the "Graduate Studies" Submenu
  • News & Events Click here to open the "News & Events" Submenu
  • Diversity
SUPPORT HSS
JOB OPPORTUNITIES
CONTACT US
About HSS
Back
  • HSS Year in Review
  • Honors and Awards
  • Job Opportunities
  • Contact Us
People
Back
  • Professorial Faculty
  • Emeritus Faculty
  • Lecturers and Other Faculty
  • Postdoctoral Instructors
  • Postdoctoral Scholars
  • Graduate Students
  • Visiting Faculty and Associates
  • Staff
Research
Back
  • Humanities Research
  • Social Sciences Research
  • Postdoctoral Programs
Graduate Studies
Back
  • Social Sciences PhD Program
  • Social and Decision Neuroscience PhD Program
  • HSS Graduate Courses
  • Job Market Candidates
  • Graduate Programs Alumni
  • HSS Course Policies
    • Avoiding Plagiarism
    • Use of Generative AI
News & Events
Back
  • HSS Calendar
  • News
  • Seminars and Conferences
  • Honors and Awards
Open search form
Cathy Jurca headshot
Mail Code: MC 101-40
Phone: 626-395-3603
Email: [email protected]
Administrative Assistant:
Name: Joanna Poon
HSS Home  /  People  /  Catherine Jurca

Catherine Jurca

Professor of English and Visual Culture
B.A., University of California, 1987; M.A., Johns Hopkins University, 1992; Ph.D., 1995. Instructor, Caltech, 1995; Assistant Professor, 1995-2001; Associate Professor of Literature, 2001-04; Associate Professor of English, 2004-10; Professor of English, 2010-21; Professor of English and Visual Culture, 2021-; Master of Student Houses, 2002-09; Executive Officer, 2014-18.
  • Profile
  • Publications

Profile

Catherine Jurca has published on Classical Hollywood film, exhibition history, and the twentieth-century American novel. She studies the relationship between the business history of the major film companies, the movies they made, the theaters that screened them, and the audiences that consumed them. Her book Hollywood 1938: Motion Pictures' Greatest Year, analyzes an unprecedented, industry-wide public relations campaign through which filmmakers and exhibitors tried to convince a deeply disenchanted public that movies were central to their lives and communities. She has also published several articles on a remarkable trove of box-office records from the Stanley-Warner theater chain that offered hard data about audience choice and how film distribution and exhibition responded to and shaped that choice. Her research in literature focuses on the American novel in its broader cultural contexts. Jurca's first book, White Diaspora: The Suburb and the Twentieth-Century American Novel, argues that the suburban novel, with its focus on spiritual impoverishment and self-pity, played a central role in creating an enduring portrait of the white middle class as the victim of its own success.

Jurca's teaching includes a freshman Introduction to Film course, advanced courses on the films and history of Classical Hollywood and the New Hollywood and the twentieth-century American novel. In 2021, she offers a new course in heritage conservation, which introduces students to theories about and the practice of preserving tangible and intangible heritage, from the Caltech campus and downtown LA's historic theater district to UNESCO sites.

Research Summary
Twentieth-Century American Literature and Film; Architectural History; Historic Preservation
Caltech Affiliations
  • Caltech-Huntington Program in Visual Culture

Featured News

New Visual Culture Minor Available to Students
September 20, 2021
Visual culture minors will study media used in film, literature, history, art, and more.
Teaching Film in the Time of Zoom
June 22, 2020
English professor Cathy Jurca makes changes to her introductory film class to adapt to remote learning during the pandemic.
New Visual Culture Program Coming to Caltech and The Huntington
December 13, 2018
A grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation will allow Caltech to create a new program in visual culture that will involve students, researchers, and artists.
Read more news   >

Selected Publications

  • Hollywood 1938: Motion Pictures' Greatest Year (University of California Press, 2012).
  • White Diaspora: The Suburb and the Twentieth-Century American Novel (Princeton University Press, 2001).

Articles in Cinema Journal, Film History, Representations, The Moving Image, American Literary History, and MLQ.

Caltech Torch
Caltech Logo
California Institute of Technology
map marker
1200 East California Boulevard
Pasadena, California 91125
Contact Us Claimed Copyright Infringement Privacy Notice Site Content Copyright © 2023 Log In