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Dr. Susan Rosenbaum English 4750 American Literary Modernism in the Museum, Archive, and Historical Site COURSE DESCRIPTION AND GOALS: This course will introduce students to modernist literature in the United States, and to research on American literary modernism. We will study literary modernism as it engages modernism in the other arts (the visual arts, music, film, dance); scientific and technological innovations (mass production, psychoanalysis, the automobile, the skyscraper); and historical and political contexts (immigration, migration north, the two world wars, the great depression, the modern city). Modernist writers sought to “make it new” in their work and often in their lives, but not all have been remembered. We will consider how cultural memory and sites of cultural commemoration have been formed, even as we look at material in the museum and archive that asks us to expand and transform our understanding of U.S. modernism. The experiential learning component of this class will involve travel to relevant museums, archives, and historical sites that illuminate particular features of and contexts for literary modernism, and that offer materials that can lead to innovative research projects. Course assignments will be organized around these visits: a short paper, journal, blog, or research project will be required as an outcome of each site visit. TEXTS: All texts are required, and are available at the UGA Bookstore or Off-Campus Books. You may be able to purchase inexpensive used copies on-line at www.abebooks.com or at amazon.com. Please try to purchase the editions indicated, and when we’re discussing a text I’ve posted online, please bring a print-out to class. Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons 1914 W.C. Williams, Spring and All 1923 Flannery O’Connor, Wise Blood (1952) Lanston Hughes, The Weary Blues (1926) Ernest Hemingway, In Our Time (1925) F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 1925 Jean Toomer, Cane 1923 Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God 1937 Alain Locke, Ed. The New Negro: Voices of the Harlem Renaissance 1925 Federico Garcia Lorca, Poet in New York 1929-30 Mina Loy, Lunar Baedeker 1923 Week 1: Introduction to Modernism Raymond Williams, “When Was Modernism?” Henry Ford, Ch 5 & 7 from My Life and Work Charlie Chaplin, part 1 of “Modern Times” (1936) Hart Crane, “Chaplinesque” Unit 1: Modernism & the Visual Art (Weeks 2-5) Gertrude Stein, Tender Buttons 1914 W.C. Williams, Spring and All 1923 Langston Hughes, The Weary Blues 1926 Art and poetry from Alain Locke, Ed. The New Negro 1925 Mina Loy, Lunar Baedeker 1923 Local trips: 1. Athens: Georgia Museum of Art & UGA Special Collections [artists’ books] 2. Atlanta: High Museum of Art & Hammonds House Museum Assignments: A short analyis of a work that involves both image and text (e.g. a collaborative book), or analyis of a literary text and a work of visual art to which it responds. A site visit journal or blog. Unit 2: Modernist Little Magazines (Weeks 6-9) In Week 1 of this unit, the class will study, as a group, select issues of little magazines available through the Modernist Journals Project Digital Archive. As a case study, we will look at how stories from Hemingway’s In Our Time were published in little magazines. In weeks 2-4 of this unit, students will work on the little magazines project. For this project, students will study one issue of an American little magazine published during the modernist era (roughly 1900-1945: if the magazine has a longer run, students will choose an issue from the first half of the century). I have generated a list of possible magazines and will help direct students based on their interests. During our visits to the UGA Library and MARBL, students will have time to explore different magazines, and Reference Librarians will review some particularly interesting and rare examples. I will supply a series of questions to think about and to answer in a report (3-4 pages). The purpose of the report is for students to convey what they have learned about the magazine and its relationship to modernism: an argumentative thesis for this assignment is not required, but the report should be well-written and clearly organized. I will assign students to a panel based on their magazine, and the entire class will participate in a panel discussion. Local trips to: 1. UGA Library, 2nd Floor collection of little magazines 2. Emory University MARBL: Special Collections, Raymond Danowski Poetry Library [I have already made contact with the relevant reference librarian at MARBL] Possible trips in the future if the logistics can be worked out 1. UNC Chapel Hill Special collections: archive of Contempo 2. LSU Special Collections: archive of The Double Dealer Assignment: A report on a specific issue of a little magazine, which will be informed by researching the background and entire run of the little magazine. Student will also work in groups to present their little magazine to the class. Future Assignment: In the case of Double Dealer or Contempo, the class could aspire to create an original website about the magazine, to be added to an existing digital archive or one that is sponsored by UGA. Unit 3, Cultural Commemoration of Modernist Authors & Texts: Historical Sites & Manuscripts (Weeks 10-14) For this unit, the class will read and discuss a specific work, and then will visit the historical site and/or archive. I would like the class to visit two sites if possible, so that we can compare them and think about the history and politics of cultural memory. In the case of Toomer’s Cane, it may be posssible to work with the Sparta community to begin thinking about and taking steps towards establishing a Toomer Museum/historical site. 1. Wise Blood Visits: Flannery O’Connor, Andalusia Farm/Museum, Milledgeville GA Papers at GA College & State University [Includes manuscript of Wise Blood] 2. Jean Toomer, Cane Visits: Sparta Georgia High School and/or Local Government Office Sparta Hancock County Historical Society Other Regional Possibilities: 1. F. Scott Fitzgerald, The Great Gatsby 1925 or Tender is the Night Zelda and F. Scott Fitzgerald Museum, Montgomery AL Museum of Fine Arts 2. Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God 1937 Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts, Eatonville FL; ANH Institute for Documentary Studies at University of Central Florida Rare Books & Manuscripts Collection, University of FL Gainesville Assignment: How does the site visit and archive open up new perspectives on the text? This assignment could involve a site journal and blog, including observations and notes taken while in the archive. This visit may lead to independent or group research projects, resulting in research papers, or an actual plan for a historical site in the case of Toomer. Week 15 Reflecting on the Class. What have we learned? Which visits were most and least instructive, and why? Which assignments were the most and least useful? How could the class benefit from/incorporate these insights the next time it is taught?