282/383modernistmovement

English 282B D. Sherman

T-Th 2:30-4:00 HU III

The Modernist Movement, 1900-1925

This course considers modernism as a collective enterprise--self conscious and deliberate--in the earlier part of the 20th century, an enterprise that took various forms in art, literature, music, architecture, philosophy, psychology, photography, film and science, an undertaking that reorganized the experience of time and space in important ways that still demand our attention. The intention of the course, however, is not only to pursue those critical influential relationships which seem to abet the notion of an historical modernism as a European movement both cosmopolitan and international, but to look synchronically at modernism as undertaken in diverse forms in diverse disciplines. Our task is thus both comparative and interdisciplinary. To that end, we concentrate upon the idea of abstraction as a semiotic coding for the alientation of the aesthetic object from historical circumstance or the aestheticizing of diverse experience in the specialized experience of the aesthetic object. We will want, of course, to look at the cultural crisis that precipitated such a turn to abstraction and the problems it raises for the discovery of meaning. Works studied in the course will be diverse: in addition to various literary works and important theoretical considerations of modernity, we will also look at the work of Cezanne and the Cubists; architecture from Art Nouveau to the Bauhaus; the Futurist movement and the idea of the avant guarde; Freud and the beginnings of psychoanalytic literature; German Expressionist film; Duchamp, Breton and Surrealism. The purpose of the course is thus twofold: 1) to establish an interdisciplinary narrative of modernism, and 2) to introduce students to theories of interdisciplinarity and the problems concomitant to these theories.

Readings:

Introduction:

Modernity/The Eiffel Tower (1889)

Week 1-2:

English Aestheticism and the beginnings of Art Nouveau
Gaultier, "Preface" to Mademoiselle de Maupin (1834)
Pater, "Conclusion" to The Renaissance (1873)
Nietzsche, from The Gay Science (1887)
Wilde, The Decay of Lying (1891)

Week 3-7:

Joyce, Ulysses (1922)

Week 8-9:

Picasso, Braque and Cubism: Documents
Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936)

Week 10:

Futurism and the Idea of the Avant Garde: Manifestos (1909-18)

Week 11-12:

Gropius and the Bauhaus
Ruskin, "Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century" (1884)
F. L. Wright, "The Art and Craft of the Machine" (1904)
Loos, "Ornament and Crime" (1908)
Gropius, "Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus" (1923)
Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow (1929)
Benjamin, A Berlin Chronicle (1932)

Week 13:

German Expressionist Film
Freud, "The 'Uncanny'" (1919)
Wiene, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919)
Lang, Metropolis (1925)

Week 14:

Duchamp, The Large Glass, "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors Even" (1915-23)
Lyotard, "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism" (1979)

Course Requirements: 2 essays (6-8 pages); 1 longer final essay (8-10 pages); 3 brief (electronic) exercises in various kinds of reading (Ulysses, Cubism, Bauhaus architecture); class participation

Introduction:	Modernity/The Eiffel Tower (1889)
Week 1-2:	English Aestheticism and the beginnings of Art Nouveau Gaultier, "Preface" to Mademoiselle de Maupin (1834) Pater, "Conclusion" to The Renaissance (1873) Nietzsche, from The Gay Science (1887) Wilde, The Decay of Lying (1891)
Week 3-7:	Joyce, Ulysses (1922)
Week 8-9:	Picasso, Braque and Cubism: Documents Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" (1936)
Week 10:	Futurism and the Idea of the Avant Garde: Manifestos (1909-18)
Week 11-12:	Gropius and the Bauhaus Ruskin, "Storm Cloud of the Nineteenth Century" (1884) F. L. Wright, "The Art and Craft of the Machine" (1904) Loos, "Ornament and Crime" (1908) Gropius, "Theory and Organization of the Bauhaus" (1923) Le Corbusier, The City of Tomorrow (1929) Benjamin, A Berlin Chronicle (1932)
Week 13:	German Expressionist Film Freud, "The 'Uncanny'" (1919) Wiene, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1919) Lang, Metropolis (1925)
Week 14:	Duchamp, The Large Glass, "The Bride Stripped Bare by Her Bachelors Even" (1915-23) Lyotard, "Answering the Question: What is Postmodernism" (1979)