Modernisms - bmc.ENGL.B290.001.F20
Section outline
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This course will be conducted online via zoom. We will meet on Tuesdays and Fridays from 2:40 to 4:00pm. Here is the zoom link to connect to the class on those days and times:
Join URL:
https://brynmawr-edu.zoom.us/j/98479739226
and if your computer isn't working, you can phone in to class, using one of the phone numbers here and putting in the "meeting id" when you connect:
Dial by your location+1 301 715 8592 US (Germantown)+1 312 626 6799 US (Chicago)+1 646 558 8656 US (New York)+1 253 215 8782 US (Tacoma)+1 346 248 7799 US (Houston)+1 669 900 9128 US (San Jose)Meeting ID: 984 7973 9226Here is a link to fill out an evaluation of this course:
ENGL-B290-001 Modernisms https://brynmawr.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3CwGhHK65eaxPFz
If you have any questions about the course please contact me at mtratner@brynmawr.edu and I will set up a zoom session for us to talk.
The course will examine a range of works (novels, poems, paintings, and movies) that have been called “Modernist” from around the world—in general, these are works that are plotless, characterless, fragmented, eerie or just plain strange. The central question we will be exploring is, why did artists decide to create such distinctly unrealistic works? The course is organized as an exploration of many different lenses through which to view what was going on in the early twentieth century when modernism emerged; each lens presents a different vision of why new literary forms emerged.
Many of the readings on available on Moodle: just click on the title. There are four books I suggest you buy, all available at the college bookstore, or seek out copies online:
Selected Poems of T.S. Eliot
Passing, by Nella Larsen
The Waves, by Virginia Woolf
Their Eyes Were Watching God, by Zora Neale Hurston.
There are three assignments in the course, one due October 13, one due November 20, and the final one due at the end of exam period. One must be an 8 page paper; the other two may be five page papers or you may choose to do a journal or a creative work instead. You can only do one creative work or one journal. Directions for these alternative assignments:
a) a journal consists of comments on 5 different works on the syllabus (either literary works or critical essays), one page (double-spaced) devoted to each. The goal of a journal is to briefly note down an interesting insight you have had about one of the works--it can be an interpretation of a short passage, an idea that could be the basis of a full essay, a critique of some interpretation provided by someone else (from the reading or from class discussion), etc.
b) a creative work still aims at saying something that might have been put into a critical essay--but you feel your point can be better expressed using a structure other than an essay. You might, for example, write a parody of one of the poems we read; or create a “missing part” of one of the works; or create a video that suggests how Modernist ideas might be different in a different medium; or make something that simply rejects Modernism as a mistaken artistic project. Your work can take the form of a drawing, a video, a poem, a musical composition, a satiric essay, etc., You MUST ALSO INCLUDE a set of footnotes that help a viewer understand your work--especially explaining how your work is an act of criticism, a reaction to something we read. To add footnotes to a creative work without distracting, I suggest you make a copy of the work, which might take the form of a photograph of a drawing or a xerox of a poem; on the copy, put numbers that indicate spots which footnotes explain. Then attach a set of notes that explain what you "mean" to be communicating at each of those spots and how some or all of those spots provide reactions to something we read.
You can also meet with me during the term if you wish to discuss any of the assignments.
If you need an extension for any of the interim deadlines, please contact me before the date (either tell me after class or email me). The final deadline cannot be extended except by contacting your dean and arranging an incomplete in the course.
Students with disabilities are welcome in the class. The Access Services office in Guild Hall provides support and reasonable accommodations for eligible students with disabilities. Individuals who think they may need accommodations because of a learning, physical, or psychological disability are encouraged to contact the Coordinator of Access Services as early as possible to discuss their concerns.
Access Services
Bryn Mawr College
Eugenia Chase Guild Hall
101 N. Merion Ave.
Bryn Mawr, PA 19010
Deb Alder, Coordinatoremail: dalder@brynmawr.edu
Telephone: 610-526-7351
Content Warnings: If you wish to see content warnings for works we are reading in this course, click here.
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Tuesday:We will discuss the very idea of modernism and what everyone expects in this class. We will examine a number of paintings to compare earlier styles and modernist forms. Before coming to class, look at these three paintings, each of which you can see by clicking on the title: Jean Baptiste Corot's "Portrait of a Woman" ;' Pablo Picasso's "Portrait of Dora Maar" ; and Picasso's " Portrait of Daniel Henry Kahnweiler".Friday: Read Clement Greenberg's essay on "Modernist Painting"; also, Wallace Stevens, "The Snowman" and "The Anecdote of the Jar"
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Tuesday: Read T. S. Eliot: "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock," and "Journey of the Magi"
Also watch the first Mickey Mouse cartoon, "Steamboat Willie". The cartoon is available here:.
Friday: Read T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land. You don't have to read Eliot's footnotes (but you can if you want). Do not worry about making sense of all of it. Think of the poem at first as a collection of pieces or fragments, and consider them separately. The title makes a statement of what the poem is about: a vision of the world as wasted, destroyed, dead, garbage. Look for a few parts of the poem--a stanza, a scene, even just one line--that you can see as presenting a vision of the world or part of the world as wasted. Mark those sections so we can talk about them in class. Also, see if you find some other parts of the poem interesting--perhaps an image or the rhythm of a section. Does any small moment or image seem an image of something that isn't broken or wasted--even beautiful? Mark those parts as well. And finally, mark a section (a stanza, a line, even just a word) that makes no sense, or that seems particularly unreadable. -
Hints of every theory
Tuesday Read: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land a second time. This time we are looking for a spot in the poem that could be about what critics have said modernism is about. Each person will select one of the topics below to look for; if two people want to look for the same topic, that will be ok. You may feel a topic takes up a whole page or just appears in a couple of words. Don't think there is a "right answer."
1. The medium: lines in the poem that could be taken as simply being examples of writing or art, not lines "about" anything else2. The failure of language or the failure of culture
3. Beauty--lines or structures of the work that are pleasing
4. Suffrage: women gaining power; working class people stepping into this high-culture poem
5. Historical events: Britain's past; any other past; World War I; the communist revolution
6. Collective identity--or the blurring together of individuals
7. Multiple cultures--particularly non-European ones
8. horror movie imagery--things that are terrifying or distorted or weird
9. The unconscious--things that usually are buried in the mind; or things that could be memories from early childhood
10. Sexuality
11. religion
12. A vision of a new kind of human being emerging
13. Economics--anything about money, wealth, poverty
14. technology
15. nature
16. the author's life
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History
Tuesday: Read: Michael Tratner, "Politics and Modernist Poetry." A History of Modernist Poetry. Ed. Alex Davis and Lee M. Jenkins. Cambridge University Press, 2015. Also examine a Picasso painting, The Demoiselles d'avignon, two Masks from African countries, and a direct comparison of faces in the painting and those masks. Also read Langston Hughes, "Cubes"; William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming" and "Easter, 1916"
Friday: Read an Excerpt from The History of Art, by H. W. Janson, Wallace Stevens, "Bantam in the Pine Woods"; "Two Figures in Dense Violet Light"; T.S. Eliot, "Sweeney Among the Nightingales" and "Burbank with a Baedeker, Bleistein with a Cigar."“ Optional additional reading: Michael North, “The Dialect of Modernism”
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Tuesday: Read Part One of Passing by Nella Larsen and Four Poems by Langston Hughes and an excerpt from The Souls of Black Folk.
Friday: Finish reading Passing.
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Tuesday: First 5 page assignment due. Reread this poem William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming" and read this poem by Langston Hughes, "Theme for English B." Also, two short movies: 1)the first Mickey Mouse cartoon again: The cartoon is available here:
.2) An excerpt from the movie Singing in the Rain, a song called "Moses Supposes," available here:
Friday: Watch Man with a Movie Camera at
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Tuesday: Read The first two sections of The Waves, by Virginia Woolf--up to p. 72, or just before the italicized passage that begins "The sun rose..."
Friday: Read The third and fourth sections of The Waves, up to p. 147 or just before the italicized passage that begins, "The sun had risen to its full height."
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Tu: The Waves, two more sections--up to p. 181 or just before the interlude beginning "The sun had now sunk lower in the sky..."
Fri: No class -
Tuesday: No class
Fri: Discussion of the current situation -
Tu: No class
Friday: A meeting to discuss the strike and how we could contribute. No homework to be done for this meeting. Come to the usual zoom meeting for this time or email me your ideas. And ignore the assignments still listed for the rest of the term.
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Tu: To focus our discussion on issues raised by the strike, read an article about Virginia Woolf wearing blackface, available here:
https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/the-time-virginia-woolf-wore-blackface
In class, we will watch 2 videos about Kara Walker's anti-racist art. I have also created a new forum for general comments in reaction to issues raised by the strike. Feel free to post any thoughts at all about the college, the strike, the course, or anything else that is on your mind. To get to the forum, just click HERE.
Fri: Finish reading the The Waves. I understand that the strike may continue so it may be difficult to do this long reading assignment, so I am suggesting three ways to read the rest of the book skipping certain passages.
1. Read the rest of the novel. We left off at p. 182, the interlude beginning "The sun had now sunk lower in the sky." and the book goes on to p. 297. This is in my edition 115 pages.
1. Skip the first section beyond what we had read. In other words, start on p. 207, an interlude beginning "The sun was sinking. The hard stone of the day was cracked..." and keep reading up to the end of the book. This would be 90 pages
2. Start on p. 207, an interlude beginning "The sun was sinking. The hard stone of the day was cracked..." and read through to p. 246, to just before a paragraph beginning, "Thus, not equally by any means or with order, but in great streaks..." Then skip to p. 279, to a paragraph beginning"Was this, then, this streaming away mixed with Susan, Jinny, Nevillle, Rhoda, Louis, a sort of death." and read to the end of the book. This would be 67 pages.
I respect whatever decision you make, even if it means not attending class Friday altogethr.
--Michael
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No Classes--Winter Break
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Tu: Read Their Eyes Were Watching God, chapters 1-8
Fri: Read Their Eyes Were Watching God, chapters 9-13.
Here is a link to fill out an evaluation of this course:
ENGL-B290-001 Modernisms https://brynmawr.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3CwGhHK65eaxPFz
Friday:
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Tu: Finish reading Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Fri: Overview of the course.