ENGL 351 Modernism and Contemporary British Fiction

This course will focus on British Modernism, which constituted a revolt against Western literary tradition. Our primary reading will be the early 20th century novels of Modernism - by Joyce, Conrad, Woolf, Lawrence, and Forster. The course will conclude with contemporary works that echo and revise the experiments in form and content of the Modernists, such as Boy Snow Bird by Helen Oyoyemi, Disgrace by J. M. Coetze, and the graphic novel Are You My Mother? by Alison Bechdel. The latter texts engage with the contemporary politics of race, gender, sexuality, and postcolonialism. We will examine the tumultuous political and cultural context in which these aesthetically gorgeous and revolutionary works were written. We will consider the Modernist authors' complicated responses to, and critiques of, empire, and the ways their texts respond to the social movements of their time.