Mod/Con
The Mod/Con Working Group is coordinated and funded by the Department of English.
Mod/Con, Penn English's Modernist and Contemporary Literatures Reading Group, is a working group devoted to the discussion of cultural and literary problematics in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Our critical and historical interests range from the late nineteenth century through to the present day, across early and high moderism, postmodernism, and beyond. Each semester, we work to develop ways of thinking about these period markers—how they differ, what they share—through invited lectures and works-in-progress by graduate students and faculty in and outside of the Penn English community. In tandem with these works-in-progress, Mod/Con frequently hosts reading events of scholarly monographs as well as works of short fiction and poetry. We hope you can join us for an event!
For more information or to be placed on the Mods listserv, please contact Jonathan Dick <jondick@sas.upenn.edu>
Upcoming Events
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Jesse McCarthy (Harvard): "The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War"
February 21, 2025 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Hannah Freed-Thall (NYU): "Modernism at the Beach: Queer Ecologies and the Coastal Commons"
March 21, 2025 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Avni Sejpal (UPenn): Work in Progress
April 11, 2025 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Past Events
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Alec Pollak (Cornell): "Outing Lorraine"
April 14, 2022 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Rachel Greenwald-Smith (Saint Louis University): 'On Compromise'
March 25, 2022 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Talk by Jill Richards (Yale) “The Queer Atlantic Triangle”
March 15, 2022 - 5:15pm to 6:30pm -
JS Wu (UPenn): "Sleight of Hands: Early Studio Animation and the Disappearing Artist"
February 24, 2022 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Lee Konstantinou (U Maryland): 'Helen DeWitt's Aesthetic Education
February 4, 2022 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Jane Hu (Berkeley): "Generic Protagonists: Asian Americans at the End of the Novel"
December 2, 2021 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Joseph Cleary (Yale): Modernism, Empire, World Literature
November 18, 2021 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Laura McGrath (Temple University) - "Debuting"
October 15, 2021 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Mathias Nilges (St. Francis Xavier): "How to Read a Moment"
September 24, 2021 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm -
Seo Hee Im (Hanyang): "Beckett's Hoarding"
April 30, 2021 - 10:00am to 11:30am