Instr:                 Kelly Klingensmith
Office:              CRT 507,     229-6022
e-mail:              klingens@uwm.edu
Office hours:     by appointment.

Course Information:                      MWF 12:30 p.m.               AUP 189

Course Description

 According to Janet Staiger, it is generally understood that the years from 1880 to 1920 mark “a transitional stage in American capitalism and society” – a transition from entrepreneurial to monopoly capitalism, from a predominately rural society to an urban one. Even the understanding of time and space transform as the telegraph, the telephone, railroad and cinema “shrink distances and expand vistas.”

The term modernism is widely used to describe global literary and artistic production that took place around this time. Struggling with new ideas of the self and society (expressed through the works of thinkers like Nietzsche, Freud, and Marx), advances in technology, the effects of increasing industrialization and urbanization, and then the catastrophic impact of world wars, writers and artists went through a period of crisis and rapid change. Their diverse works often share certain qualities -- the need to break with the recent past, the urge to accurately portray modern life, and the desire to do so through innovative and experimental forms of writing.

In this course we will read some of the standard early works of literary modernism, as well as some that aren’t encountered so often, focusing on issues of crisis and change. Just what is it, exactly, that these works suggest is in crisis? What kind of recourse do they propose? How, for example, does Hemingway’s Nick Adams deal with the psychic and environmental damage brought on by war? How do Joyce’s Dubliners react to their modern city? What future does the then new genre, science-fiction, propose as a consequence of modernity? To complement our study we’ll look to other art forms and non-literary texts for a deeper understanding of the historical and cultural context within which literary modernism developed.

Possible Course Texts Include:

 T.S. Eliot,  “The Waste Land”
 Ernest Hemingway, The Nick Adams Stories
 James Joyce, Dubliners
 Virginia Woolf, Jacob’s Room or To the Lighthouse
 Science-fiction by either H. G. Wells or Jules Verne
 Course Reader to include (among others) Pound, Hughes, Stein, the Italian Futurists, as well as some excerpts from non-literary texts by Freud, Marx, Simmel and Nietzche.
 In class screening of Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and clips from Berlin, Symphony of a City

Assignments:
Grades will be based on reading response papers (15%) that will apply close reading techniques, a short group presentation (5%) that focuses on the historical and cultural context surrounding a particular work, two 5 -7 page papers (30% each) on an approved topic, and a final exam (20%). One or both of the papers will be eligible for revision and the chance to raise your grade.

Course Policies:
Participation is expected and attendance is mandatory. Late papers will not be accepted and incompletes will not be given.