Department of English

Seminars on modernism are usually taught within a single geographic area, cultural tradition, period, language, medium, and disciplinary framework. Yet modernism was a border-crossing phenomenon, and it may productively be studied as such. A recent turn toward global and transnational paradigms is one of the few traits shared by modernist studies across multiple disciplines. "Modernism Across Borders" will take advantage of this commonality among diverse sites of inquiry, treating modernism as a transborder phenomenon while also probing the limitations and still-latent potential of such an approach. The course will be taught by a team of faculty members and is intended to appeal to students in a variety of programs. Each instructor will lead the seminar for two meetings and attend at least one other meeting. Each student will choose one instructor as adviser in course work that culminates in a paper presented in a conference at the end of the semester. Instructors include: Tsitsi Jaji, Priya Joshi (Temple), Kevin Platt (who will be present as moderator at all seminar meetings), Jean-Michel Rabaté and Paul Saint-Amour.