Department of English

This course will present an interdisciplinary approach to major themes and deveopments in 20th-century literature and culture. We will read some of the most significant literary works of the century along with movements in visual art, film, and dance. In considering the relationships between literature and other arts, as well as their historical and political contexts, we will examine the major developments in 20th-century cultural production: realism, modernism, postmodernism, and the meaning of historical memory. We will study literary works by Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, Ozick, Spiegelman, Amis, and others; visual works by Picasso, Chagall, Rothko, and Warhol; films by Orson Welles, Charlie Chaplin, and others; dance works by Diaghilev, Graham, Cunningham, and Morris, and music videos by Madonna and Peter Gabriel. Requirements will include quizzes, essays, and exams.