Learning Outcomes:
1. Demonstrate a critical understanding of American Modernism, one that is alert to its complexity and diversity.
2. Engage with key critical and theoretical concepts such as race/ethnicity, gender, and the dynamic and shifting nature of cultural forms and national identities.
3. Develop an understanding of the historical and cultural contexts from which modernist writing emerges.
4. Apply such concepts and contexts to close anlaysis of poetic and narrative form.
5. Develop an ability to engage in discussion of course texts and themes in the workshops accompanying the lectures for this module.
6. Develop and write a research essay on a topic related to this module.
7. Complete an examination at the end of the semester.
Indicative Module Content:
The key focus of the course is the diversity and complexity of American Modernism. Consequently the course examines a range of male and female writers across varied ethnic and regional perspectives, and engages with innovations in both narrative and poetic practice.
Topics and writers may include (subject to amendment):
Introduction to the Themes and Contexts of American Modernism
The Waste Land: The Poet in the Modern City
Moving Toward Modernity: Edith Wharton, 'Ethan Frome'
William Carlos Williams and Imagism
The Harlem Renaissance: Constructing Black Modernity
Langston Hughes: Modernity, the Blues and Jazz
Zora Neale Hurston/Nella Larsen: Blackness, Modernity and the Woman Writer
Willa Cather: Regional and Rural Modernisms
Anzia Yezierska: Vernacular Modernism and the Urban Immigration Novel
Lorine Niedecker’s Poetics: Folk / Avant garde Modernism