ENGL 336 - American Modernism

(3 credits)
Prerequisite: ENGL 203 and ENGL 234
Focusing on literature and culture produced in the United States between 1890 and 1945, this course explores the cultural sensibility of “modernism”. This course will examine the shared aesthetic and thematic concerns of producers of fiction, poetry, drama, non-fiction manifestos, art and film in this period, as they presented their work as a break from 19th century values and artistic modes. The course will pay particular attention to the historical contexts that catalyzed the modernist movement and key recurring themes in modernist culture. Figures studied may include Hemingway, Gilman, Eliot, Larsen, O’Neill, Anderson, Faulkner, Williams, Stevens, Cather, Hopper and Stein.