LIT-255 Literature and History III: Modernism to the Present (3)

Surveys the relationship between literary movements and socio-historical events and contexts over the course of the twentieth century, including the history of modernism from emergence to decline (circa 1890-1945), mid-century literature, and postmodernist developments (1960s-present). Examines modernist and avant-garde movements as competing urban movements that actively responded to transnational developments in science and technology, the visual arts, philosophy and psychology. Reviews the second half of the century as marked by tendencies such as magical realism, metafiction, and the merging of literary and popular media forms. The course surveys varied experiments of writers around the globe (including Anglo-American, Latin American, European, African, Asian, and Russian) whose work shapes and was shaped by world events including revolution, the two World Wars, changes in gender roles, racial conflict, socialism and, in America, the Great Depression and later, mass consumerism and the Cold War. AU Core Habits of Mind: Socio-Historical Inquiry.