American Modern

Module title	American Modern
Module code	EAS3235
Academic year	2019/0
Credits	30
Module staff	Professor Vike Plock (Convenor)

Duration: Term	1	2	3
Duration: Weeks		11

Number students taking module (anticipated)	16

Module description

While Modernism is an international phenomenon, in this module we will listen for its distinctly American accents. We will analyse how U.S. writers responded to the injunction to “make it new” as they reacted to rapidly changing social and economic conditions in the first decades of the twentieth century. We will focus on the degree to which they located their sense of modernity’s disruptions, disorientations, and potential for liberation in (re)constructions of race, gender, and sexuality. We will also consider literature’s dialogue with other modern art forms—photography, painting, blues, jazz, and film. The module is suited for those interested in modernity, in U.S. culture, in literature’s response to historical contexts, and/or in interdisciplinary American Studies.

Module aims - intentions of the module

Through seminar discussion of literary texts, critical and theoretical analyses, and historical contexts, this module seeks to identify a distinctly American modernist idiom. We will examine how literary texts reacted to and sometimes attempted to intervene into general social trends (urbanisation, migration/emigration, changing racial and gender dynamics, emerging mass and consumer cultures) as well as specific historical phenomena (e.g. Prohibition, the Plessy v. Fergusson decision, the Great Migration, the Depression). We will compare modernist internationalism and various strands of “native” U.S. modernism—e.g. romantic nationalism, the Harlem Renaissance, cultural pluralism. Working across several literary genres (poetry, novel, non-fiction prose), we will consider the importance of coteries and creative communities (orbiting such “little magazines” as Little Review and The Seven Arts or anthologies like The New Negro) and will analyse the aesthetic influences of other art forms on literary texts. The seminar will meet three hours weekly and will include discussion of student-generated topics. presentation.

Intended Learning Outcomes (ILOs)

ILO: Module-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

1. Demonstrate an informed appreciation of selected U.S. literary texts from the first half of the twentieth century
2. Demonstrate an informed understanding of modern U.S. social and cultural history and the capacity to relate literary texts to the contexts out of which they arose
3. Articulate key critical and theoretical issues surrounding modernity and modernism, and identify the distinctive manifestations of these in the work of U.S. writers

ILO: Discipline-specific skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

4. Demonstrate an advanced ability to analyse literary texts from various genres and to relate aesthetic concerns and expressive modes to particular historical and cultural contexts
5. Demonstrate the capacity to research historical and cultural questions and to utilise the knowledge gained to explicate the literature under consideration
6. Demonstrate an advanced ability to articulate and analyse relevant theoretical and critical ideas, and to apply these to literary texts

ILO: Personal and key skills

On successfully completing the module you will be able to...

7. Through weekly seminar discussion, demonstrate an advanced capacity to articulate complex ideas independently and to engage others in rigorous but respectful debate
8. Through research for seminars and essays, demonstrate a capacity to work independently to identify key questions for analysis and an advanced proficiency to locate and evaluate relevant secondary materials and to utilise these in analysis of primary materials
9. Through essay-writing, demonstrate the capacity to analyse complex literary texts, theoretical ideas, and historical and cultural phenomenon, and to construct a sophisticated argument in clear and compelling prose

Syllabus plan

Whilst the content may vary from year to year, it is envisioned that it will cover some or all of the following topics:

Key literary texts, authors and concepts associated with American modernism such as modernist coteries, American expats in Paris, modernist magazines, formal experimentation. We will study a wide range of artistic expressions usually associated with American modernism by situating them in their historical context and by discussing scholarly responses that have been produced to these texts and art forms over the years. Authors studied will include Edith Wharton, Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, T. S. Eliot, H. D., Ernest Hemingway, Nella Larsen, Langston Hughes, Nathanael West, William Faulkner, Marianne Moore, Anita Loos and John Dos Passos.
Historical contexts and debates that have fundamentally shaped the development of American modernism as an artistic tradition such as urbanisation, the Harlem Renaissance, the Depression, Hollywood cinema, American middlebrow culture and the Deep South.

Synergies between literature and other art forms such as photography, visual arts, cinema, jazz and blues or architecture.

Learning activities and teaching methods (given in hours of study time)

Scheduled Learning and Teaching Activities	Guided independent study	Placement / study abroad
33	267	0

Details of learning activities and teaching methods

Category	Hours of study time	Description
Scheduled Learning and Teaching	33	Seminarsthese will be led by the instructor; you must prepare for each seminar, circulate a short list of discussion questions twice during the semester, and prepare and give a seminar presentation in groups of 3 once during the semester.
Guided Independent Study	103	Seminar Preparation (Individual)
Guided Independent Study	164	Reading, research, and essay preparation

Formative assessment

Form of assessment	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Student-generated discussion questions	A set of three discussion questions (each question about 50-75 words, for 150-225 words in total), submitted twice during the semester.	1-6	Oral feedback from peers and instructor in seminar discussion

Summative assessment (% of credit)

Coursework	Written exams	Practical exams
100	0	0

Details of summative assessment

Form of assessment	% of credit	Size of the assessment (eg length / duration)	ILOs assessed	Feedback method
Modernist Magazines Research Assignment	40	2500 words	1-6,8-9	Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutorial follow-up
Essay	60	3500 words	1-6,8-9	Feedback sheet with opportunity for tutorial follow-up

Details of re-assessment (where required by referral or deferral)

Original form of assessment	Form of re-assessment	ILOs re-assessed	Timescale for re-assessment
Modernist Magazines Research Assignment	Modernist Magazines Research Assignment	1-6,8-9	Referral/deferral period
Essay	Essay	1-6,8-9	Referral/deferral period

Re-assessment notes

Deferral – if you miss an assessment for certificated reasons judged acceptable by the Mitigation Committee, you will normally be either deferred in the assessment or an extension may be granted. The mark given for a re-assessment taken as a result of deferral will not be capped and will be treated as it would be if it were your first attempt at the assessment.

Referral – if you have failed the module overall (i.e. a final overall module mark of less than 40%) you will be required to submit a further assessment as necessary. If you are successful on referral, your overall module mark will be capped at 40%.

Indicative learning resources - Basic reading

Primary Reading

Hilda Doolittle, Trilogy (New Directions, 1998)
John Dos Passos, The Big Money (Mariner Books, 2000)
T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land (Norton Critical, 2000)
William Faulkner, Absalom, Absalom! (Vintage, 1991)
Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (Scribner, 2006)
Langston Hughes, Collected Poems (Vintage, 1995)
Nella Larsen, Passing (Penguin Classics, 2003)
Anita Loos, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (Penguin,1998)
Gertrude Stein, The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas (Vintage, 1990)
Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust (Penguin, 2007)
Edith Wharton, The House of Mirth (Penguin, 1993)

Please note that the above is an indicative list and that the list for the current year will be available on ELE. Additional sources such as poems and essays will be made available to students via the ELE site.

Selected Secondary Reading

Baker, Houston. Modernism and the Harlem Renaissance. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1987.
Bochner, Jay and Justin Edwards, eds. American Modernism across the Arts. New York: Peter Lang, 1999.
Crunden, Robert M. Body and Soul: The Making of American Modernism, Art, Music, and Letters in the Jazz Age, 1919-1926. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
DuPlessis, Rachel Blau. Genders, Races and Religious Culture in Modern American Poetry, 1908-1934. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2001.
Evans, Nicholas. Writing Jazz: Race, Nationalism, and Modern Culture in the 1920s. New York: Garland, 2000.
Gates, Henry Louis. The Signifying Monkey: A Theory of Afro-American Literary Criticism. New York: Oxford UP, 1986.
Hutchinson, George. The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White. Cambridge MA: Harvard UP, 1995.
Kalaidjian, Walter ed. The Cambridge Companion to American Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005.
Kolocotroni, Vassiliki et al, eds. Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents. Chicago: U Chicago P, 1998.
Locke, Alain, ed. The New Negro: An Interpretation. New York: Albert and Charles Boni, 1925.
McDonald, Gail. American Literature and Culture 1900-1960. Oxford: Blackwell, 2007.
Michaels, Walter Benn. Our America: Nativism, Modernism, Pluralism. Durham: Duke U P, 1995.
Morrison, The Public Face of Modernism: Little Magazines, Audiences and Reception 1905-1920. Madison: U Wisconsin P, 2001.
Nelson, Cary. Repression and Recovery: Modern American Poetry and the Politics of Cultural Memory. Madison: U Wisconsin P, 1989.
North, Michael. The Dialect of Modernism: Race, Language and 20th-Century Literature. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1994.
Scott, Bonnie Kime ed. Gender in Modernism: New Geographies, Complex Intersections. Evanston: U Illinois P, 2007.
Stansel, Christine. American Moderns: Bohemian New York and the Creation of a New Century. Princeton: Princeton UP, 2000
Susman, Warren. Culture as History: The Transformation of American Society in the Twentieth Century. New York: Pantheon Books, 1984.

A detailed list of secondary sources is available on ELE.

Indicative learning resources - Web based and electronic resources

Web based and electronic resources:

ELE – https://vle.exeter.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=4950
Modernist Magazine Project: http://www.modernistmagazines.com/
Modernist Journals Project: http://modjourn.org/
Journals available through Exeter’s elibrary:
- American Literary History
- American Literature
- American Quarterly
- Journal of American Studies
- Modern Fiction Studies
- Modernism/Modernity
- Tulsa Studies in Women’s Literature

Key words search

modernism, modernity, twentieth century, American literature, African American literature, U.S., race, gender

Credit value	30
Module ECTS	15
Module pre-requisites	None
Module co-requisites	None
NQF level (module)	6
Available as distance learning?	No
Origin date	01/01/2015
Last revision date	19/02/2019