LIT 461 Advanced Seminar in Modernism

Modernism was the first cultural movement that was truly international: based in several key cities (Paris, London, New York, Berlin, Vienna, Zurich, Munich, Prague), it attracted expatriates from many other countries (for example, Joyce, Kandinsky and Rilke to Paris; Lorca, Duchamp and Stravinsky to New York), and a myriad of intercultural exchanges occurred as a result of these interconnections. This seminar will explore the evolution of modernism (from pre-modernism to high modernism to late modernism), the socio-historical elements of modernity which gave rise to modernism, several key exemplars of modernism from different cultures, and the influence of various forms of modernism that are still with us today. Our emphasis will be on the literary and artistic avant-gardes (and the relationship between them), but we will also be considering modernist architecture, music, and cinema.