English 253 - Modernists: In Their Words and In Their Worlds
TU/TH | 10:05 AM - 11:20 AM
In addition to sharing a historical moment, all of these texts share an experimental, transgressive, subversive spirit. Sometimes that meant rejecting linear chronology; sometimes it meant giving voice to marginalized subjects; sometimes it meant writing a novel that seemed more like a poem, or a poem that seemed more like a novel. At times it even meant killing off a main character halfway through the book, or letting a narrator follow a character directly into the bathroom.
Classes will be centered on substantive discussions of students' own close readings of the texts. Written work will include formal essays as well as an optional creative writing assignment (“become a modernist writer”).
Possible authors include T.S. Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, James Joyce, Nella Larsen, and Virginia Woolf.
Limited to 20 students. Spring semester. Professor Abramson.
How to handle overenrollment: Preference to first-year students and sophomores.
Students who enroll in this course will likely encounter and be expected to engage in the following intellectual skills, modes of learning, and assessment: Emphasis on close readings (fiction and poetry); student writing; optional opportunity for creative writing; group work. For each class, students will be expected to bring a “passage of the day” they would like to discuss with their peers.