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Modernism

ENGL 210.401
instructor(s):
TR 10:30-12

This course, which could be entitled "en-gendering modernism", will first set out to define modernism, seen in a broad conceptual and historical context in order to concentrate on the question of feminine writing in this movement. A first part will be predominantly theoretical, introducing to the cultural context of the turn of the last century; we shall survey works by Nietzsche, Freud (Dora) and Ibsen so as to situate the debate concerning the role of women in modernist revisions of dominant ideology. The introduction to the productive interaction between the arts and literature will be given by Christopher Butler's book, Early Modernism. Then we will read the anthology edited by Bonnie Kime Scott, The Gender of Modernism. (1990) and focus on a few women writers such as H.D., Rebecca West, Dorothy Richardson (the first part of Pilgrimage), May Sinclair, Mina Loy and Virginia Woolf (Mrs Dalloway). We will compare these to texts written by men in which the issue of femininity looms large, such as four chapters of Joyce's Ulysses ("Calypso", "Nausicaa", "Circe" and "Penelope") . Requirements for the course include two papers of ten pages, one oral presentation, and a final research paper of fifteen pages. No final exam.

fulfills requirements