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ENGL 385 A: Modernism/modernity

Embodied Modernism

Meeting Time: 
MW 2:30pm - 4:20pm
Location: 
CDH 101
SLN: 
14171
Instructor:
Jessica Burstein
Jessica Burstein

Additional Details:

War, Fashion, Big Cities, and Sex: all four are embattled terrain, if not constitutive features, of modernity. This class gives the student a grounding in foundational literary and non-literary modernist texts, alongside an emphasis on the body as it appears in literature, sociology, and contemporary prose of the period; we will track changing depictions of sexuality with the emergence of the New Woman, Dorian Gray's relentless quest for new sensations, the "invention" of shell shock as a form of trauma, sartorial fashion, and urban experience. We will read novels, modern poetry, some manifestos, one popular best-seller of the 1920s, and close-read one great painting by the Impressionist Edouard Manet that mingles advertising, prostitution, sensual pleasure, the (proto-) little black dress, and urban spectacle.

Catalog Description: 
Introduces and explores the genealogy, character, and consequences of the modern for textual production and reception. Addresses competing conceptions of modernism and periodizations of modernity, including: preoccupations with novelty/the new; narratives of historical development; temporality; constructions of high and low culture; intersections between aesthetics and politics; and transnationalism.
Status: 
Active
Last updated: 
March 21, 2016 - 9:07am
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