Modernism and postmodernism as literary movements, with reading
of selected literature and criticism. Special emphasis will be
placed on the relevance of the texts under discussion to
contemporary societies and cultures from around the world.
Additional Requirements for Graduate Students: Additional reading, research, and writing assignments.
Athena Title
Modernism and Postmodernism
Undergraduate Prerequisite
Experience engaging critically with literary or other texts and experience developing and expressing ideas in written and oral form.
Graduate Prerequisite
Experience engaging critically with literary or other texts and experience developing and expressing ideas in written and oral form.
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Student Learning Outcomes
Students will be able to develop, support, and express ideas in written and oral form using language with clarity and precision in coherent, cohesive essays, and/or oral presentations.
Students will be able to synthesize competing positions into an original argument supported by textual evidence.
Students will be able to interpret the formal, aesthetic, and creative elements of literary, cinematic, and cultural texts and the social and historical contexts in which they circulate.
Students will be able to investigate, analyze, synthesize, and demonstrate knowledgeably and coherently, in written and oral form, various topics dealing with the modernist and postmodernist movements, in art in general and in literature in particular.
Topical Outline
The course is structured through a series of readings in modern and postmodern literature, with special emphasis on the relevance of these texts to the contemporary world. The topics covered include modernism and modernization; technology and the institution of literature; colonialism and Euro-American modernism; postmodernism and the age of information; postcolonialism and the relevance of postmodernity; and postmodernism as a social, political, philosophical, and aesthetic category. The works studied vary with the individual instructor. The following is a sample syllabus of readings for a single semester:
Kafka. The Trial
Pound. The Cantos (selections)
Proust. Swann's Way
Faulkner. Absalom, Absalom!
Pynchon. Gravity's Rainbow
Okri. The Famished Road
Garcia Marquez. One Hundred Years of Solitude
Rushdie. Midnight's Children
Abe. Kangaroo Notebook
Institutional Competencies
Critical Thinking
The ability to pursue and comprehensively evaluate information before accepting or establishing a conclusion, decision, or action.
