EN 894.01 American Modernisms (Spring 2007-2008: 3)
Focusing on issues of language and representation, this course will trace
the way in which modern American writers respond to the problem of forging
a link between language and experience in a time of cultural crisis. Section
I, which will include poetry by William Carlos Williams and fiction by Ernest
Hemingway and Nathanael West, will focus on the attempt to restore meaning
to language after World War I by grounding words in experiential reality.
Section II will explore poetry and fiction by T.S. Eliot, Wallace Stevens,
William Faulkner and Gertrude Stein, investigating the way in which these
works emphasize the power of language to remake the world through the act
of representation. The third section of the course will focus on the linguistic
and cultural tensions that emerge in the work of African-American writers
including Nella Larsen, Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, between
the two World Wars. In our analysis of primary texts, we will pay close
attention to literary technique and representational strategies as we explore
depictions of violence and warfare, portrayals of the body, the construction
of narrative subjectivity, and issues of gender, race, class and sexuality.
Students will be asked to come to class having read both the primary text
and the assigned critical or theoretical essay for the week. The course
will be run as a seminar in which each member of the class contributes not
only by responding to questions but by raising issues that relate to their
own interests and expertise. Course requirements include regular attendance
and participation in classroom dialogue, a presentation on a cultural text,
a fifteen minute conference style paper delivered to the class, and a final
seminar paper 15 -20 pages in length.
Laura Tanner
Last Updated: 24-JAN-07