Undergraduate - UnitATS3421 - Literature and Modernism

Does language create our world, or does it merely describe it? If it is the former, then what are the stakes for literature? Working with a range of novelists, poets, and theorists, this course will explore literature that engages with these questions of representation in the most innovative and exciting ways. Modernism describes not so much a definite time-span in literary and artistic history, as it does an aesthetic response to various social, moral, technological, and political transformations. We will reflect on some of the most influential concepts in the early part of the twentieth century in relation to cultural and material upheavals, including urbanization, scientific and technological advances, conflicts about sexuality, and the women's movement. We will draw on theoretical texts which highlight the ambiguity or dialectics of modernity, but our primary focus will be on the literary works from Asia, Europe and Latin America that stand at the heart of definitions and debates about modernism. The texts will be studied in English translation, though they may be read in their original languages.