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 7, 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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Micah Del Rosario, WIP "No Crying in Public: Whiteness, the 2nd Person, and the Comic Sense in Rhys' Non-Caribbean Fiction."
March 16, 2017 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm -
Gayle Rogers & Paul Saint-Amour: Series Editors in Conversation
March 2, 2017 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm -
A welcome back discussion: Adorno, Sartre and the politics of art and literature
February 6, 2017 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm -
Devorah Fischler WIP (Penn) - CANCELED
November 29, 2016 - 6:00pm to 7:30pm -
Disability Studies: Joe Valente (SUNY Buffalo) "Aging Yeats: From Fascism to Disability"
November 9, 2016 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm -
Tanya Agathocleous (Hunter/CUNY): "Liberal Empire's Queer Counterpublic"
October 20, 2016 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm -
Discussion of Modernism and Twentieth-Century Studies
October 13, 2016 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
David Kurnick (Rutgers)
“The Demographic Passions of the Realist Novel”April 21, 2016 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
Sara Sligar WIP
April 4, 2016 - 5:00pm to 6:30pm -
WIP with Jill Richards
March 24, 2016 - 5:00pm to 7:00pm