On this module we will trace the representation of the city in a variety of modernist texts, including poetry, novels, short stories, films, visual art, and theoretical writing, paying particular attention to the historical and cultural context of these texts.

The rise of urban life had a huge effect on the literary and artistic movement of the first half of the twentieth century known as modernism, and on the construction of the twentieth-century subject. Indeed, modernity itself can be identified as having grown in concert with the dominance of the metropolis. The mixture of fascination and revulsion with which modernist writers inhabited their cities is key to the texts we will look at on this course. We will identify this paradoxical sense of the city as a site of possibility, of chance collision and erotic encounter, but also as imbued with the fragmentary and alienating effects of urbanism – the city can be, as it was for James Joyce, ‘the centre of paralysis’. This module will investigate a wide range of modernist responses to the city: literary, artistic, theoretical, and cinematic.

• demonstrate an ability to read a range of modernist texts critically and analytically, drawing associations between the text – be it artistic, literary or cinematic – and the theoretical, historical, cultural and social context in which it was produced;
• draw on a sophisticated range of critical material in order to make new and exciting conceptualisations of the texts under discussion and their urban contexts
• interact with one another in a supportive manner that encourages further independent learning, both in spoken and written dialogue
• make informed choices in order to take responsibility for developing and directing their reading and learning, both individually and in groups
• critically and attentively read and improve their own and others’ academic writing

One one-hour lecture weekly, and one two-hour seminar. During the lecture students will be given handouts, and powerpoint presentations will be used where appropriate (for instance when discussing visual art). Where copyright allows these will be made available to students on Learning Central in advance of the session. In the seminars there will be the opportunity for student presentations, small-group discussion and close analysis, and for developing writing and editing skills through the medium of peer-feedback. Students will be expected to write regularly, within and outside the formal contact time, and to work on this writing during seminars. There will be film screenings arranged where necessary.

WHAT IS EXPECTED OF ME?

Students are expected to attend and participate in the lectures and seminars for all modules on which they are enrolled. Students with good cause to be absent should inform their module leaders, who will provide the necessary support. Students with extenuating circumstances should submit the Extenuating Circumstances Form in accordance with the School’s procedures.

The total number of hours which students are expected to devote to each 20-credit module is 200. Of these, 30 hours will be contact hours with staff (lectures and seminars); the remaining 170 hours should be spent on self-directed learning for that module (reading, preparation for seminars, research, reflection, formative writing, assessed work, exam revision).  There are also additional seminars and workshops that students are able to attend.

This module will develop a wide range of skills, as students develop and enhance their ability to assimilate a variety of critical approaches to a range of literary and cultural texts. The close analysis of texts will call for sensitivity to the use of language, as well as visual and historical awareness. Critical thinking, interdisciplinary skills, the successful integration of theoretical material into an analysis of a text, and the formulation of concise and effective argumentation will all be essential critical skills developed during this module. Practising peer-feedback will develop a supportive learning community, improving both communication and editing skills.

• One peer-feedback exercise in which each student provides constructive feedback (c. 400 words) on a piece of formative work (c. 1000 words) written by another student. (It is the quality of the feedback given, and not the formative work itself, that will be assessed.)
• One portfolio of c. 2,800 words. This can consist of a single essay, or of two (or exceptionally more) shorter pieces, which might include book reviews, textual analysis exercises, or a creative-critical response to a modernist text (which would usually be accompanied by a reflective, critical commentary). Students are encouraged to revise their pieces of formative work in the light of their peers’ comments for inclusion in their portfolios. Essay questions will be provided but students will also be encouraged to develop their own.

The peer-feedback exercise will be assessed according to marking criteria devised and agreed in the seminars. The portfolio is assessed according to the Marking Criteria set out in the English Literature Student Handbook. There are otherwise no academic or competence standards which limit the availability of adjustments or alternative assessments for students with disabilities.

Students will be expected to have read in advance the texts marked below as ‘essential reading’. The texts marked ‘further reading’ are optional, but recommended. A more general suggested bibliography will be provided at the beginning of the course. Wherever possible, and particularly for the critical readings and poetry, texts will be provided in a course reader (R). Students are advised, however, to obtain their own copies of the novels and the short story collections. There are no preferred editions for this course, but preferred translations are marked. Students should contact the module leader as early as possible if they will require readings in an alternative format.

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: The Flâneur. Essential Reading: Charles Baudelaire, ‘To a Passer-by’; T.S. Eliot: ‘The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock’; ‘Preludes’; Walter Benjamin, ‘Some Motifs From Baudelaire’ (R). Further Reading: Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project; Georg Simmel, ‘The Metropolis and Mental Life’ (R); Henri Lefebvre, ‘Urban Form’ (R); Guy Debord, ‘Theory of the dérive’ (R).

Week 3: Alienation in the City. Essential Reading: Franz Kafka, The Metamorphosis and Other Stories, trans., Michael Hofmann*. Further Reading: Raymond Williams, The Country and the City.

Week 4: Modernist Aesthetics. Essential Reading/Viewing: Selected poems by Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein, and Charles Olson (R); Walter Benjamin, ‘The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’ (R); Marcel Duchamp, ‘Nude Descending a Staircase, No 2’; Jacob Epstein, ‘Rock-Drill’. Further Reading: Gertrude Stein, ‘Portraits’ (R); Ezra Pound, ‘A Retrospect’ (R).

Week 5: Cinematic Modernity. Essential Viewing: Fritz Lang (dir.) Metropolis. Further Viewing: Charlie Chaplin (dir.) City Lights; Scott Klein, ‘Modernist Babylons: Utopian Aesthetics and Urban Spectacle’.

Week 6: Reading Week

Week 7: Joyce and the City. Essential Reading: James Joyce, Dubliners. Further Reading: James Joyce, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.

Week 8: Urban Manhattan. Essential Reading: Frank O’Hara ‘Second Avenue’ (R); Walt Whitman, ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’ (R); Frank O'Hara, Jackson Pollock (New York, 1959). Essential viewing: Paintings by Jackson Pollock; ‘Jackson Pollock: The Process’, slides/clip on line at http://www.nga.gov/feature/pollock/process1.shtm. Further Viewing: Val Lewton (dir.) The Seventh Victim. Further Reading: John Ashbery, ‘On Val Lewton’s The Seventh Victim’.

Week 9: Exile. Essential Reading: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land; selected poems by Ezra Pound, Gertrude Stein and W.H. Auden (R). Further Reading: Samuel Beckett, Murphy.

Week 10: The Erotics of the Modern City. Essential Reading: Djuna Barnes, Nightwood; Selected poems by Walt Whitman, Mina Loy, and Frank O’Hara (R). Further Reading: Sigmund Freud, Three Essays on the Theory of Sexuality.

Week 11: Conclusion: course summary and Q & A.

Tim Armstrong, Modernism, Technology and the Body (1998).

Tim Armstrong, Modernism (2005). [Great general introduction to the period.]

Matthew Beaumont and Gregory Dart, eds., Restless Cities (2010).

Michael J Begnal, Joyce and the City: the Significance of Place (2002).

Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (1983).

David Bradshaw, ed. A Concise Companion to Modernism (2003)

Peter Brooker, ed. Modernism/Postmodernism (1992)

Malcolm Bradbury & James McFarlane, eds. Modernism: 1830-1930 (1976).

Peter Bürger, The Theory of the Avant-Garde (1984).

Christopher Butler, Early Modernism: Literature, Music and Painting in Europe, 1900-1914 (1994).

Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism (1987) [Very good on the avant-garde.]

Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle and Modern Culture (1999).

Marianne DeKoven, Rich and Strange: Gender, History, Modernism (1991).

J. H. Dettmar & Stephen Watts, eds., Marketing Modernisms: Self-promotion, Canonization, Rereading (1996).

Astradur Eysteinsson, The Concept of Modernism (1990).

Peter Faulkner, ed., A Modernist Reader (1986).

Briony Fer et al, Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars (1993).

Desmond Harding, Writing the City: Urban Visions and Literary Modernism (2003).

Peter Nicholls, Modernisms (1995). [Extremely helpful first section on modernist irony.]

Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution (1970). [Particularly the fifth and sixth chapters, ‘Urban Myths and Ideologies’ and ‘Urban Form’.]

Richard Daniel Lehan, The City in Literature: An Intellectual and Cultural History (1998). [Excellent general introduction to the city in literature.]

David Harvey, Paris: Capital of Modernity (2003).

Luc Sante, Low Life (1991). [Very good cultural history of Manhattan]

Edward Timms, David Kelley, Unreal City: Urban Experience in Modern European Literature and Art (1985).

Lawrence Rainey, ed., Modernism: An Anthology (2005). [Useful general compendium of sources.]

Iain Boyd Whyte, Modernism and the Spirit of the City (2003). [Good for an architectural and city-planning perspective.]

Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (1973).

INDICATIVE READING LIST:

Tim Armstrong, Modernism, Technology and the Body (1998).

Tim Armstrong, Modernism (2005). [Great general introduction to the period.]

Matthew Beaumont and Gregory Dart, eds., Restless Cities (2010).

Michael J Begnal, Joyce and the City: the Significance of Place (2002).

Marshall Berman, All that is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity (1983).

David Bradshaw, ed. A Concise Companion to Modernism (2003)

Peter Brooker, ed. Modernism/Postmodernism (1992)

Malcolm Bradbury & James McFarlane, eds. Modernism: 1830-1930 (1976).

Peter Bürger, The Theory of the Avant-Garde (1984).

Christopher Butler, Early Modernism: Literature, Music and Painting in Europe, 1900-1914 (1994).

Matei Calinescu, Five Faces of Modernity: Modernism, Avant-Garde, Decadence, Kitsch, Postmodernism (1987)[Very good on the avant-garde.]

Jonathan Crary, Suspensions of Perception: Attention, Spectacle and Modern Culture (1999).

Marianne DeKoven, Rich and Strange: Gender, History, Modernism (1991).

J. H. Dettmar & Stephen Watts, eds., Marketing Modernisms: Self-promotion, Canonization, Rereading (1996).

Astradur Eysteinsson, The Concept of Modernism (1990).

Peter Faulkner, ed., A Modernist Reader (1986).

Briony Fer et al, Realism, Rationalism, Surrealism: Art Between the Wars (1993).

Desmond Harding, Writing the City: Urban Visions and Literary Modernism (2003).

Peter Nicholls, Modernisms (1995). [Extremely helpful first section on modernist irony.]

Henri Lefebvre, The Urban Revolution (1970). [Particularly the fifth and sixth chapters, ‘Urban Myths and Ideologies’ and ‘Urban Form’.]

Richard Daniel Lehan, The City in Literature: An Intellectual and Cultural History (1998). [Excellent general introduction to the city in literature.]

David Harvey, Paris: Capital of Modernity (2003).

Luc Sante, Low Life (1991). [Very good cultural history of Manhattan]

Edward Timms, David Kelley, Unreal City: Urban Experience in Modern European Literature and Art (1985).

Lawrence Rainey, ed., Modernism: An Anthology (2005). [Useful general compendium of sources.]

Iain Boyd Whyte, Modernism and the Spirit of the City (2003).[Good for an architectural and city-planning perspective.]

Raymond Williams, The Country and the City (1973).