Modernism

Semester and Year Offered: 5th Semester (Monsoon Semester 2020)

Course Coordinator and Team: Sayandeb Chowdhury

Email of course coordinator: sayandeb[at]aud[dot]ac[dot]in

Pre-requisites: None

Aim: This course will look at how Modernism - as a congress of ideas and as a symptom and experience of modernity grew in response and reaction to the urbanisation of Europe in 19th and 20th century. The course will take into account the major movements while trying to critically interrogate the works of the most notable Modernists.

Brief description of modules/ Main modules:

1. The climate of Modernism
2. Selected works of European poets (Baudelaire, Pessoa, Lorca, Mandelstam, Eliot)
3. Three works of fiction (Dostoevsky, Kafka, Camus, Woolf)
4. Modernist theatre (Beckett)
5. Cinema of modernism

Assessment Details with weights:

1. Mid-semester test 30%
2. Presentation/seminar 30%
3. End-semester test 40%

Reading List:

1. M Bradbury and J Macfarlane, Modernism: A Guide to European Literature
2. M Levenson, Cambridge Companion to Modernism
3. M Berman, All That is Solid Melts into Air
4. P Nichols, Modernism: A Literary Guide
5. P Lewis, Cambridge Guide to Modernism