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 Christos Kalli (kallic@sas.upenn.edu) and Rylee Smith (rylees@sas.upenn.edu).
Upcoming Events
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Christopher Newfield, "Intro to Critical University Studies"
September 26, 2025 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm -
Global Modernism and Simultaneity
October 13, 2025 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Francisco Robles (Notre Dame) "This Bridge Called My Back and the Shape of Dialectics to Come"
October 20, 2025 - 5:30pm to 6:30pm
Past Events
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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 -
Matt Hart (Columbia) : Excerpt from “Extraterritorial” and Publishing Q&A
March 31, 2021 - 5:00pm to 6:45pm -
Megan Quigley (Villanova): "T.S. Eliot’s Fictional Afterlives”
March 17, 2021 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm -
Jonathan Sterne (McGill): “There Are Never Enough Spoons: Fatigue and the Political Phenomenology of Impairment”
February 26, 2021 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm -
John Greaney, Mod/Con Work in Progress. "Elizabeth Bowen and Irish Modernism."
December 4, 2020 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm -
Jed Esty, WIP: "Russian Plots Revisited: The Long Cold Wars of Conrad and Nabokov"
November 20, 2020 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm -
Discussion of Short Stories by Octavia Butler
October 23, 2020 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm -
Discussion of Sianne Ngai's "Theory of the Gimmick"
September 18, 2020 - 12:00pm to 1:30pm