Professor
Priya Joshi
English
150.3, "The Other Modernisms"
Spring
1997
Office
Hours: Mondays and Wednesdays, 11:00-12:30 and by appointment
Room
451 Wheeler Hall,
510-642-2377;
Email: pjoshi@socrates.berkeley.edu
The Course
This is an exploratory seminar on modernism and its canons. The experiences of modernity and modernization–of capital formations, labor organization, secularization, metropolitanization, exile, war, revolution–that shaped European literary modernism in the early years of this century began to become apparent in Europe's former colonies after the Second World War, yet the attendant literary production in these emergent nations has rarely been considered "modernism" but is variously labeled "post-modernism," "third-worldism," etc. If modernism and the avant garde as they were conceived in the years between the Wars imagined themselves to subvert dominant culture, alienation, and power, then this course will examine the extent to which these "other modernisms"–i.e., those at the periphery–bear out the promises of the earlier, oppositional, modernist project. The course will look at post-War Latin American and post-Independence Indian novels as instances of ascendant modernisms in an attempt to study the possibility of positing a unified historical and geographical modernism.
The Texts (All available at the ASUC Bookstore in the Student Union)
Alejo Carpentier,
Kingdom of this World
Carlos
Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz
Clarice
Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart
G.V.
Desani, All About H. Hatterr
Salman
Rushdie, Midnight's Children
Bloch,
et al., Aesthetics & Politics
Raymond
Williams, The Politics of Modernism
Additionally,
a Reader of critical and theoretical essays is availabe from Krishna
Copy on University at Shattuck (540-5959).
Recommended Texts
Abrams, Glossary
of Literary Terms, 5th Ed. OR
Holman,
The Handbook to Literature, 5th Ed.
The
MLA Handbook
Strunk
& White, The Elements of Style
The Requirements
As a senior seminar, your major project in this course will be a 20-page thesis, due at the beginning of class on May 7th. Additionally, each student will be responsible for doing one oral presentation and for raising questions for class discussion during that session. I might also assign short (2-page) reading essays for some of the theoretical texts.
Class Policies
I will expect you to attend class punctually and regularly. Please be prepared to document all absences; 3 undocumented absences will lower your grade one full notch (from A to B, etc.), and 5 will fail you. Since this is a seminar in which every member's participation is crucial, I will expect you, as a mark of politeness, to inform me when you are unable to attend class; this is simply being courteous and doesn't count as documenting an absence. Use the MLA format for all papers and be sure to include a title, date, professor's name, and staple on all work. NOTE: All work must be submitted in class on time; in fairness to those who turn in their work on time, I will not accept late papers except under the most egregious circumstances (which generally do not include technical difficulties). I will expect you to contribute responsibly and to participate fully in class discussions. Readings are due by the date marked. Attitude and participation will comprise approximately 15-20% of your final grade.
Note on Academic Honesty: I will expect every member of this class to adhere to the highest standards of academic honesty. You must fully and unambiguously cite all work that is not your own in your written assignments and give credit to those whose ideas or language you are using. Failure to do so constitutes plagiarism, whose penalty may include failing the course and academic dismissal.
Schedule of Readings
1/22: Welcome & Introduction
1/27: Alejo Carpentier, Kingdom of this World
1/29: Kingdom; "Prologue: On the Marvelous Real in America"
2/3: Carlos Fuentes, The Death of Artemio Cruz
2/5: Fuentes, Artemio Cruz
2/10: Artemio Cruz; E. Rodriguez Monegal, "The New Latin American Novelists"
2/12: LIBRARY TOUR (meet in Room 350C Moffitt; bring your UC ID to enter the bldg.)
2/17: Presidents' Day Holiday; NO CLASS
2/19: Clarice Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart
2/24: Lispector, Near to the Wild Heart
2/26: Jorge Luis Borges, "The Argentine Writer & Tradition";
Octavio Paz, "A Literature of Foundations"
3/3: G.V. Desani, All About H. Hatterr
3/5: Desani, All About H. Hatterr; Narasimhan, "The Strangeness of G.V. Desani"
3/10: Salman Rushdie, Midnight's Children
3/12: Rushdie, Midnight's Children
3/17: Rushdie, Midnight's Children; Rushdie, "Imaginary Homelands"
3/19: Midnight's Children; Lipscomb, "Contesting History in Midnight's Children"
Tentative essay topic & preliminary bibliography due in class
3/24-3/38: Spring Break; NO CLASS
3/31: Aesthetics & Politics, "Discussing Expressionism" and "Realism in the Balance"
4/2: Aesthetics & Politics, "Against Georg Lukács"
4/7: Georg Lukács, "The Ideology of Modernism"
4/9: Georg Simmel, "The Metropolis & Mental Life"
Final essay topic, draft outline, and working bibliography due in class
4/14: Raymond Williams, "When was Modernism?" and "The Language of the Avant-Garde"
4/16: Perry Anderson, "Modernity & Revolution"
4/21: Andreas Huyssen, "Mass Culture as Woman: Modernism's Other"
4/23: Franco Moretti, "One Hundred Years of Solitude"
4/28: Jean Franco, "Dependency Theory & Literary History... Latin America"
4/30: Wrap-up and concluding remarks
5/5: Wrap-up and concluding remarks
5/7: 20-page paper due in class