Overview

Description

CALENDAR DESCRIPTION:

Interdisciplinary study of literary texts and/or artistic forms across cultures and periods. May be repeated for credit when a different topic is taught. Students with credit for HS 309 or WL 309 under this topic, or HS 303 under the title "Reflection on the Greek Civil War" may not take this course for further credit. Breadth-Humanities.

COURSE DETAILS:

Modernism and the 20th Century Avant-Gardes

How did literature and art respond to the profound changes that took place in the 20th century? How do they respond to the contradictions of modern life? What do they reveal about the nature of reality and the human condition? Can art mobilize aesthetic and political energies? What is the value of artistic experimentation? These questions will accompany our discussions of the literary and artistic movements of ‘modernism’ and ‘the avant-gardes.’ We will examine works of art, literature, and cinema that operate a cultural and aesthetic break with earlier traditions in response to, and sometimes in anticipation of, the turbulent political events and social ideologies that characterize the 1900s. 

Our course will focus on the aesthetic and the political dimensions of some of the protagonists of this time, paying particular attention to works that raise questions about language, subjectivity, politics, and modern life. We will consider in particular: 1) the crisis of language and representation; 2) the crisis of the subject; 3) the relation of modernism to modernity; and 4) the relation of aesthetics to politics in the wake of the crisis of capitalism that led to WWI.

Amongst the authors of the works that we will be studying are Virginia Woolf and Proust, Kafka and Hrabal, Tayeb Salih, Maḥmūd Darwīsh and Leonard Cohen, Cezanne and Picasso, Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, Chagall and Mayakovsky, but also critical theorists such as Lukacs, Benjamin, and Adorno and film directors from the post-WWII neo-avantgarde age. Alongside literature and art, we will look at historical documents that articulate the reflections, anxieties, and challenges of intellectuals about these times of radical change—times which comprised two World Wars, the rise of fascism and communism, totalitarian regimes, imperialism and decolonization, technological innovations, social oppression but also social emancipation. 

Modernism is perhaps the first truly global intellectual phenomenon. The course material focuses on Europe as a “dialogic space” rather than an identity. It will therefore include connections with North American, African American, Mexican, African, Chinese and Japanese, and Indigenous art as significant influences on and exchanges with European groups. 

Course Outline

We will begin with a few documents from the 1800s before discussing writings about modern aesthetics and the formulations of the historical avant-gardes. We will continue with the manifestos of different movements, from Futurism and Cubism to Surrealism and Anarchism, and the analysis of the genre of the manifesto. After the examination of the regroupings in the 1930s and the 1940s, in the midst of the rise of fascism, we will look at the neo-avantgardes, neorealism, new wave cinema, and indigenous art of the post-WWII period.  

Classes will start with the reading of Virginia Woolf’s Mrs. Dalloway.

COURSE-LEVEL EDUCATIONAL GOALS:

LEARNING OBJECTIVES 
At the end of the course, students will be able to: 

1. Demonstrate an understanding of the historical development of literary and artistic experimentation in the 20th century, the social transformations operated by art and literature, and the connections among different cultural traditions (Europe, the Americas, East Asia, Africa, and Indigeneity) 
2. Develop theoretical and analytical tools pertaining to different literary and artistic forms.  
3. Develop their own perspective regarding questions and debates addressed by 20th century intellectuals about the political work of art and literature.  
4. Integrate historical, literary, philosophical, aesthetic, and political analysis. 
5. Communicate their ideas and the result of their research effectively and engage in class debate. 
6. Generate persuasive and well-structured argumentation and support it through the analysis of specific evidence. 

Grading

Materials

REQUIRED READING:

REQUIRED READING NOTES: