Hauptseminar American Modernism

The 1920s and 30s witnessed significant changes in U.S.-American culture. The slogan -make it new” reflected the spirit of the times, signaling vast changes in society and the arts. Modernism in America developed in dialogue with several phenomena of modernity: new models of perspective and experience emerging from psychology, philosophy, and the visual arts; changes in urban cultural institutions; a fruitful ambivalence towards a technologically and economically innovative mass culture; and new socio-political discourse that was rapidly altering the understanding of sex and gender. It is against this background that we will investigate salient writings of the modernist era, beginning with the poetry of Ezra Pound and T.S. Eliot, then moving to new inventions in drama and prose, especially in the works by Eugene O’Neill, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner. In the final leg of the semester we will investigate how African-American writers, among them W.E.B. Dubois, Langston Hughes, and Nella Larsen, employed modernist techniques to create racially and socially conscious works of literature. Students should purchase and read the following novels before coming to class: Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises (1926) Nella Larsen, Passing (1929) Additional poems, short stories, and dramas will be distributed through moodle. Anglistik Universität Duisburg-Essen SS 2012 alle Lehrämter, alle Lehrämter Dr. Priewe Marc