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Experiencing Modernity
ENGL104 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 goal is to understand modernity as it was experienced by American and European writers and to assess critically their legacy in light of our own late or post modern 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

Last Updated on MAR-24-2000

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