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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Jennifer Fleissner (UChicago): "Maladies of the Will: The American Novel and the Modernity Problem"
October 24, 2024 - 6:30pm to 8:00pm -
Transpacific Modernisms Reading Group
November 1, 2024 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
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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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 -
Talk by Professor Benjamin Baer (Princeton University)
December 5, 2019 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm -
Talk by Marta Figlerowicz, Associate Professor of English and Comparative Literature (Yale)
November 21, 2019 - 4:00pm to 5:30pm