Advanced Studies In Modernist Literature

AY2017/2018 Semester 1

This course looks at the aesthetics of modernism in relation to turn-of-the-century technological advances that changed auditory and visual perception. In particular, we will think about how mechanical reproduction, which was integral to photography, film, and the phonograph, influenced modernist writers. By closely examining the novels of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Dorothy Richardson, Alfred Doblin and John Dos Passos, we will question how modernist writers made use of perception-enhancing technologies both thematically and formally in their writing.