ENGL2035: Modernism
Course guide and profile

 
School of English, Media Studies and Art History
Faculty of Arts

Number of units: 2
Contact hours per week: 1 hr lecture + 2 hr tutorial
Prerequisites: #4 Arts
Incompatible: EN205
Course website: www.emsah.uq.edu.au/courses/engl2035

Course coordinator: Tony Thwaites
Office: Michie 424
Phone: 3365 2086
Email: tony.thwaites@uq.edu.au

AFS hours: Wednesday 12.00 - 2.00 pm
Thursday, 12.00 - 2.00 pm

This course is an introduction to the concept of literary modernism, through some of its main examples from English, Irish and American writing in the period between 1900 and 1930. A series of introductory lectures will be followed by seminar discussion of specific texts, in which we shall be reading them closely, looking at their interrelationships, their formal and conceptual inventiveness, and the wider implications of this. In particular, the course will focus on modernism as a mode of writing in which certain questions of the modern, the new and their relations to tradition are posed.

This course aims to:

• introduce you to some aspects of the concept of literary modernism: in particular its connections with the related concepts of modernity and the modern, and (very briefly) its relations to modernism(s) in other areas and fields.
• introduce you to some of the principal texts of English, Irish and American modernism. Because many of these texts re-invent the genres and forms with which they are working, they often require us as readers to reconsider such basic processes as meaning-making and indeed reading itself. As a result, this course also aims to:
  • develop your skills in reading complex texts, both on your own and in seminar work; and
  • develop your skills in writing on and constructing an argument about such texts and issues.
  • trace something of the complex embeddings of literary texts in the society and culture within which they are written and read.
• provide a firm basis for further studies in modernist writing and later

• In-depth knowledge of the field of study: provides the basis for a thorough knowledge of the area, through a familiarity with a variety of major texts from a number of related cultures.
  
• Effective communication: through class discussion, written assignments, and the management of a research topic
  
• Critical judgement: through the ability to work with, comprehend and evaluate complex texts and the issues they raise
  
• Ethical and social understanding: through an appreciation of the philosophical and social contexts of the texts and issues of modernism.

These are the set texts for this course

• Joyce, James. Ulysses. Oxford World's Classics.
• Wharton, Edith. The Age of Innocence. Penguin.
• Abrams, M. H. et al, eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Vol 2, 7th edition. Norton.
• Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim. Penguin.
• Lawrence, D. H. Women in Love. Penguin.
• Woolf, Virginia. To the Lighthouse. Penguin.
• Stein, Gertrude. Look at Me Now and Here I Am. Peter Owen.

As you will need to read each of these texts carefully and prepare written assessment on some of them, it is recommended that you buy your own copy of each. All are available from the University Bookshop. If you already have a different edition of any of these texts, it will do. The Norton Anthology is used for its selections of poetry by Yeats, Eliot and Auden, so if you have other collections of their work, you may find you don't need to buy the Norton. (You'll find the particular poems we'll be dealing with listed in the Timetable). Nevertheless, you may find the Norton's general critical material and notes very useful. If you have an older edition of the Norton, it will do.

As well as these texts, you will also find a lot of other helpful material in the Library and online. The ENGL2035 Resources section is a guide to these recommended texts.

Any student with a disability who may require alternative academic arrangements in the course is encouraged to seek advice at the commencement of the semester from a Disability Advisor at Student Support Services.

Student Support Services offers appointments with counsellors, disability advisers, learning advisers, international student advisers and financial assistance advisers. You many either phone, or drop in and make the appointment in person. Appointments are up to 50 minutes in duration.

Contact numbers for St. Lucia campus: (07) 3365 1704. Emergency (after hours): 1800 800 123

The School Ombudsman is Dr Rob Pensalfini (Michie 535; phone 33652245).

The function of the ombudsman is to help with problems and possible grievances. Students should consult their tutors in the first instance and, if necessary, also the convenor, but in unresolved conflict or in any matter affecting the course may make an appointment to see the ombudsman. They should check his notice board for times when he is available to see students.

Because participation is an essential part of this course, you will need to come to all lectures and tutorials, and provide documentation for absences. You cannot qualify for a pass in this course without regular attendance at classes. For further details, see the Assessment page.

This course does not assume you have already taken courses in the literary periods preceding modernism (such as ENGL2030, Nineteenth Century and Victorian Literature, or ENGL2025, Romanticism), though doing so will certainly enrich your contextual and background knowledge for this course.

It does assume, though:

• that you have had previous experience in studying literary texts, at a first-year level or later;
• that you are able to write a clear and precise English;
• and that you are familiar with the School's conventions of format, presentation and documentation, as set out in its Style Sheet.