HUM321-202501 Major W. of Lit: The Modern W.

Course categoryFDD (202501)
Major W. of Lit: The Modern W.

This course introduces students to major works of literature from the modern period, specifically from the 1850s to the 1950s. We will focus on authors writing in genres that were part of the diffuse cultural and literary current known as “modernism” and associated movements (Imagism, Futurism, Cubism, Constructivism). Our readings will include Charles Baudelaire, Ezra Pound, H.D., T.S. Eliot, Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes, Muriel Rukeyser, Marianne Moore, Virginia Woolf, and others. The class will begin with an introduction to modernist poetry, then focus closely on the modernist novel Mrs Dalloway, before exploring how the canon of “modernist literature” has expanded in recent years to include authors from outside of Europe and North America. As a comparative case study, we will look at some modernist poetry from Turkey. A central theme of the course is the relationship between modernism and modernity, specifically modern industrial capitalism. Important themes will include: city life and urban space, gender and sexuality, psychic trauma and war, the relationship between literature and politics, and colonialism and imperialism.