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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Roundtable on Trans-Pacific Modernisms, with Nan Zhang (Hong Kong U), Doug Mao (Hopkins), and Nan Da (Hopkins)
November 14, 2024 - 6:30pm to 8:00pm -
Reading Group for Jesse McCarthy's The Blue Period: Black Writing in the Early Cold War
December 5, 2024 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm
Past Events
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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 -
John Greaney Talk--CANCELED
April 15, 2020 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm -
Sarah Wasserman (University of Delaware)--CANCELED
March 25, 2020 - 5:30pm to 7:30pm -
Devin William Daniels WIP: "Richard Wright, Statistical Tension, and Naturalized Exceptionality"
March 5, 2020 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Dr. Lisi Schoenbach (University of Tennessee)
February 13, 2020 - 5:30pm to 7:00pm -
talk by Emma Heaney on her recent book "The New Woman: Literary Modernism, Queer Theory, and the Trans Feminine Allegory"
February 6, 2020 - 5:30pm to 7:30pm