EGL 262 - Global Modernisms

Course Units: 1.0

While traditionally modernism has been considered a largely European and North American affair, in recent years scholars have sought to contest and expand this canon. New research has shown that modernism existed all over the world, from Africa and Latin America, to the South Pacific and East Asia, and on all continents in between. This course introduces students to a new globally expanded understanding of modernism, while asking them to actively contribute to the ongoing expansion of the canon. We will work with new scholarship and archival materials, in order to better understand what happens to modernism as it spreads around the world.

Writers may include African writers such as Léopold Sédar Senghor, and Wole Soyinka; Caribbean writers Claude McKay and Aimé Césaire; Japanese poets, Hirato Renkichi and Chika Sagawa; Chinese writers such as Lu Xun and Eileen Zhang; Indian writers from Tagore and the Indian Progressive Writers Association to the 1960s avant-gardes; and Turkish modernists including Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar and the Garip poets.

Students will have the opportunity to work with texts in any languages they may read, or to work exclusively in English (including in translation). By exploring literary criticism on modernism in its historical and global contexts, students will gain an understanding of major debates which have shaped modernist studies across the twentieth century including New Criticism, feminist studies, postcolonial studies, as well as more recent debates on the global turn including weak theory and “bad” modernisms. Students will also improve their writing and independent research skills through an anthology project that invites them to contribute to the ongoing canonization of global modernist texts through producing scholarly annotations, introductions, and digital editing. Prerequisite(s): One 100-level English course or a score of 5 on the AP English Language or Literature and Composition test. CC: HUL, HUM, LCC, WAC, GLIT, GCHF, GSPE ISP: AIS