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Academic Year 2000/2001

Experiencing Modernity
ENGL 104 SP

This course is an introduction to some of the key ideas that have come to define modernity. We will examine a variety of documents from the mid-19th century through the 1920s, a period closely associated with the formative experience of the modern. The course is divided into three areas: capitalism, urbanization and technology; sexuality, the unconscious and individual self-development; and race, nation and authenticity. Our goals are to understand modernity as it was experienced by American and Europea n writers and to assess critically their legacy in light of our own late or postmodern concerns.

MAJOR READINGS

Conrad: HEART OF DARKNESS Dickens: HARD TIMES DuBois: THE SOULS OF BLACK FOLK Freud: DORA: AN ANALYSIS OF A CASE OF HYSTERIA Marx and Engels: THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO Wells: THE TIME MACHINE Shorter readings by Baudelaire, Boas, Cather, Delany, Durkheim, Ellis, Fry, Joyce, Le Corbusier, Malinowski, Mew, Nietzsche, Schreiner, Simmel, Wilde, and Weber.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Six short papers; larger final paper.

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA ENGL    Grading Mode: Student Option   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-26-2001

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