32202

“Make It New? Rediscovering Modernism in American Literature“

Sonja Pyykkö

Comments

The seminar takes modernist poet Ezra Pound’s famous exhortation, “make it new!,” as an invitation to reconsider the modernist canon from the point of view of works that were originally either excluded from it or quickly forgotten about, but that have been “rediscovered” by readers decades after they were first conceived. Rather than simply complement the modernist canon, these works invite us to radically reconsider what we know about literary modernism, traditionally seen as the bastion of elitist white men who—like T. S. Eliot and Pound himself—wrote purposefully difficult verse that has paradoxically come to be seen as both apolitical and, yet, aligned with the fascism that was surging in Europe at the time. The seminar is arranged into five thematic blocks—Modernist Women, Black Modernism, Queer Modernism, Left Modernism, and Indigenous Modernism—that allow us to revisit this conception of modernism from multiple different angles, while also attending to broader issues, such as canon-(re-)formation, the relationship between literature and politics, and the shifting conceptions of identity (politics) in the early 20th century. From these blocks, students will choose one that they will specialize in, forming a “task force” that acts as a correspondent for the rest of the class on issues relating to its block for the entire semester. Regular attendance, commitment to a weekly reading load of 100–200 pages—a poetry collection or a short novel—and the submission of one short (2000 words) written assignment during the semester is required for receiving participatory credit for the seminar. Full credit will also entail a term paper (6000 words), written during the semester break and submitted by the beginning of the summer term. close

16 Class schedule

Regular appointments

Tue, 10:00 - 12:00 16 Class schedule

Tue, 2024-10-15 10:00 - 12:00

Lecturers:
Sonja Pyykkö