Theory of Social and Cultural Diversity II

Week 1 -2: What is Modernism? What is the Avant-garde? Introduction to class aims, modes of assessment and objectives. Lectures and class discussions into the history of what is known as modernism, and to the various theories of ‘avant-garde’ we will be learning. We also examine these tendencies in literature, art and film – and through the emerging emphasis on techniques that focused on subjectivity and inner psychological experience. Week 3 - 4: The Futurist Manifesto (1909) by Fillipo Tomasso Marinetti We examine the text of the founding manifesto of the Italian Futurist movement, and some of the other things which were inspired by it. We look at some of the manifesto’s central ideas of technology and its relation to the world. Week 5 – 6: The Vorticist Movement, Wyndham Lewis and the English avant-garde We examine the works of the English writer and painter Wyndham Lewis, and the movement he began ‘Vorticism’, which was intended as a response to the Italian Futurist movement. We will discuss differences in their theories of artistic practise. In the second week, we look at Wyndham Lewis’s first novel Tarr, which he wrote while fighting in the First World War. Week 7-8: Reactionary and Fascist Modernism We look at the impact of the First World War on various writers, artists and poets once associated with the pre-war avant-gardes, and their turns towards fascist ideologies in the post-war period. Among other things, we look in particular at some brief writing by the French writer Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, and an adaptation of his novel ‘The Fire Within’ by director Louis Malle, among other texts by fascist modernist writers and thinkers such as the German Poet Gottfried Benn, diarist and writer Ernst Junger and the political philosopher Carl Schmitt. Week 9 – 10 Utopian/Dystopian Modernism We look at different ways of imagining the future with modernist and avant-garde texts, art, film, and even architecture. Week 11 – 12 The Legacy of Modernism: the Avant-garde within the contemporary world. We examine how almost every aspect of our contemporary world has, to some extent, been effected and influences by the ideas and work of the historical avant-gardes, through the examination of various texts and films. Week 13 The Final week will be an essay writing workshop, in which students can discuss their proposed essay theme and talk about writing strategies and to clarify any issues they may have. The essay will be due at after the last class.

Classes will be a mixture of lectures, and in class discussion, group discussion and presentations by students themselves.

There will be one coursework essay due at the end of the semester (60%) based on the course material. Students are given the opportunity to develop an essay theme based on relevant texts and create an essay question. The remaining 40% will be judged on the following criteria; class participation (including attendance) and engagement (20%), one in-class presentation of 15-20 minutes on a topic of your choice (20%). The topic of the presentation and the coursework essay may not be the same.

A definitive list of course texts and the week when they will be discussed will be given along with the course booklet on the first day of class. The below is a general list: Modernism: An Anthology of Sources and Documents - ed. by Vassiliki Kolocotroni and Olga Taxidou All That Is Solid Melts into Air: The Experience of Modernity by Marshall Berman Modernism, technology, and the body : a cultural study by Tim Armstrong (Cambridge University Press,1998) Futurist Manifestos edited by Umberto Apollonio Tarr by Wyndham Lewis (Oxford Classics: 2010) Will O' the Wisp by Pierre Drieu La Rochelle On Pain by Ernst Junger The Concept of the Political by Carl Schmitt Degeneration by Max Nordau The Decline of the West by Oswald Spengler Three Guineas by Virginia Woolf

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