ENG-20070 - Module Specification
School of Humanities
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2021/22

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

None

Description for 2021/22

Modernism is the avant-garde movement of the first half of the twentieth century: an explosion of counter-cultural activity in literature, in media, and the arts. Modernist writing experiments with aesthetics, with politics, and with new scientific, psychological, and philosophical knowledge. To emphasise its multiplicity, we now refer to the art and literature of this period as modernisms.
This module will look at some of these experimental and culturally subversive modernisms in terms of their political and social contexts. We will study African American writers, Irish writers, British writers, and white American writers living abroad to show how trends and conversations developed across the Atlantic. We will trace how each of these writers reacted to a turbulent political climate: a half-century in which there were two world wars, an economic depression, the rise of political extremism, a general strike, national political strife, and challenges to European imperialism. We will also look at how the modernists responded to the period's rallying cry "Make it New!" in terms of formal creative innovation in the arts.

To enable students to study selected fiction and poetry produced in Britain, Ireland and the US from the beginning of the twentieth century to the mid-century.
To enable students to reflect on the social contexts and political ideologies that shaped the period (1900 to 1950) and to consider the significance of a variety of literary texts in relation to these.
To provide students with a knowledge of various critical frameworks (cultural and literary) such as feminist theory, modernism and postcolonialism, and to develop an ability to work with these as part of an independent critical practice.
To enable students to appreciate and analyse the emergence and significance of different literary styles during the period.
To enable students to account for the importance of gender, class, sexual and racial identities in the literature of the period.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Identify and assess critically the formal techniques used in early twentieth-century narrative and/or poetry: 1,2
Identify and evaluate trends in fiction and poetry over the period from 1900 to 1950: 1,2
Demonstrate close reading skills appropriate to the analysis of poetry and/or fiction: 1,2
Apply knowledge of historical contexts informing the period from 1900 to 1950 to the interpretation of literary texts: 1,2
Recognise and successfully employ critical concepts and terms such as formalism, modernism, gender, and race: 1,2

Study hours

36 hours: teaching contact time
Two hour lecture slots with one hour of traditional lecture and one hour of directed study (reading and analysing secondary criticism) per week AND one hour discussion-based seminar per week.
1 hour: essay feedback
63 hours: primary and secondary reading for lecture and seminar preparation
15 hours: Short paper research and writing
35 hours: Essay research and writing

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment