Parker Hall 302 Webpage: www.wagner.edu/faculty/users/pjani
W 3-6, or by appointment Webboard:
http://webboard.wagner.edu/~pjani
(718) 390-3362
“Things fall apart; the center cannot
hold,
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world...”
W.B. Yeats, “The Second Coming”
Between the
late 1800s and the 1940s, things in Europe were indeed falling apart. Industrialization, colonization, world wars,
and revolutions instigated an intense upheaval in society and corresponded, in
turn, to a shift in the way Europeans thought
about society. “Modernism” is the name
given to a diffuse grouping of European art that broke sharply with the
dominant conventions of nineteenth-century art during this period.
In
particular, this course examines Irish and English modernist fiction, poetry,
and drama in order to show how different writers represented the emerging
fault-lines of self and nation. While
we will study canonical writers like Conrad, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf, and Yeats,
the particular focus on issues of nation and race (Irishness versus
Englishness, European vs/ non-European) and empire (colonizer vs. colonized)
allows us to expose the tensions existing within British modernism itself.
Required Texts
Mulk Raj Anand, Untouchable
Joseph Conrad, Heart of Darkness
Sean O’Casey, Three Plays
James Joyce, Dubliners
George Orwell, Burmese
Days
George Bernard Shaw, Heartbreak House
Course Packet for En 311, Spring 2003 (CP)
* Readings on Modernism and its intellectual contexts available in packet
Participation: |
15% | |
Presentation: |
5% | |
Weekly Responses: |
5% | |
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Paper #1 (500 words): |
20% | |
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Paper #2 (1000 words): |
25% | |
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Final Paper (2000 words): |
30% |
Weeks 1-2: Introduction
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F 1/17 Kipling, “White Man’s Burden” |
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Lopez and Patterson, “The Filipinos Will Not ‘Take Up the White Man’s Burden’” |
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Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock” |
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M 1/20 NO CLASS—MLK Day |
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W 1/22 Woolf, “Modern Fiction” (CP) |
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* Bullock, “The Double Image” (CP) |
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* Bell, “The Metaphysics of Modernism” (CP) |
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F 1/24 Woolf, “Street Haunting” (CP) |
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* Williams, “Metropolitan Perceptions” (CP) |
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* Bradbury, “The Cities of Modernism” (CP) |
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Weeks 3-4: Empire and the (White) Self - I
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M 1/27 Conrad,
Heart of Darkness |
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W 1/29 Conrad,
Heart of Darkness |
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F 1/31 Conrad, Heart of Darkness |
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M 2/3 Achebe, “An Image of Africa: Racism in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness” (p. 251) |
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W 2/5 Singh, “The Colonialistic Bias of Heart of Darkness” (p. 268) |
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Sarvan, “Racism and the Heart of Darkness” (p. 280) |
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F 2/7 (Marx and Engels, Nietzsche, Darwin, Freud) |
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DUE: Paper #1 |
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Weeks 5-6: Writing the Nation (Ireland)
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M 2/10 Yeats
– early poems |
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W 2/12 Joyce,
from Dubliners |
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F 2/14 Joyce,
from Dubliners |
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M 2/17 – NO CLASSES |
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T 2/18 – Monday classes |
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Joyce, from Dubliners |
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W 2/19 Joyce,
from Dubliners |
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F 2/20 Joyce, from Dubliners |
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Weeks 7-8: War and the Nation (England)
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M 2/24 WWI Poets (CP) |
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W 2/26 WWI Poets |
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F 2/28 WWI
Poets |
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M 3/3
Shaw, Heartbreak House |
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W 3/5 Shaw, Heartbreak House |
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F 3/7 Shaw, Heartbreak House |
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DUE: Paper #2 |
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SPRING BREAK |
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Weeks 9-10: War and the Nation (Ireland) |
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M 3/17 O’Casey,
from Three Plays |
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W 3/19 O’Casey, from Three Plays |
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F 3/21 O’Casey, from Three Plays |
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M 3/24 O’Casey, from Three Plays |
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W 3/26 O’Casey, from Three Plays |
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F 3/28 Yeats – middle poems |
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Said, “Yeats and Decolonization” (CP) |
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Week 11: Modernism and Gender |
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M 3/31 Mansfield, “The Garden Party” (CP) |
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W 4/2 Dekoven, “Modernism and Gender” (CP) |
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F 4/4 Woolf, “Professions for Women” (CP) |
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* Woolf, “The Legacy” (CP) |
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Weeks 12-13: Empire and the (White) Self -
II
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M 4/7 Orwell, Burmese Days |
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W 4/9 Orwell, Burmese Days |
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F 4/11 Orwell, Burmese Days |
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DUE: Proposal for Final Paper |
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M 4/14 Orwell, Burmese Days |
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W 4/16 Orwell, Burmese Days |
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F 4/18 Orwell,
Burmese Days |
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* Orwell, “Shooting an Elephant” |
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Weeks 14-15: Writing the Nation (India, Africa, Black America) |
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M 4/21 – NO CLASSES |
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W 4/23 Anand, Untouchable |
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F 4/25 Anand,
Untouchable |
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M 4/28 Senghor, “New York” |
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Hughes – poetry |
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Final Paper Due on Final Exam Date
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