EL5004 - Modernism and Modernity

This is a year-long module taught through a combination of 1.5h seminars and interactive lectures. Seminars and lectures will be complemented by essay planning tutorials in both semesters, and workshops in semester 2. These sessions will give you a thorough, in-depth introduction to a range of modernist texts, as well as the opportunity to discuss the texts and key ideas with your tutor and other students. The discursive essay in semester 1 gives you the opportunity to develop your knowledge and understanding of modernism and the assignment in semester 2 extends this knowledge by drawing on digitised resources in the Modernist Journals Project. Through an engagement with digitised archives, the second assignment requires students to consider the difference media technology makes to the meaning of a text.

Your week-on-week learning will be supported by slides made available via the e-learning portal and handouts with study questions provided by your tutors in advance to help you prepare each week’s seminar. You will be strongly encouraged to see your tutor in their weekly consultation and feedback hours as often as you feel will benefit your work. A formative essay plan and accompanying bibliography (semester 1) and a formative close reading exercise (semester 2) will help you to prepare for the 2000-word essay (semester 1) and 2000-word ‘close, middle, distant reading’ (semester 2). Feedback you will receive on formative and summative work is detailed and emphasises both existing strengths of your writing and room for further improvement. In addition, you can take advantage of a wide range of research and essay writing skills resources, including face-to-face sessions, offered by the library as part of their Skills Plus programme.

All modules at Northumbria include a range of reading materials that students are expected to engage with. Online reading lists (provided after enrolment) give you access to your reading material for your modules. The Library works in partnership with your module tutors to ensure you have access to the material that you need.

Knowledge & Understanding:
1. Knowledge of key modernist texts.
2. Understanding of the relationship between modernism and its social contexts.

Intellectual / Professional skills & abilities:
1. Ability to critically analyse different literary genres and styles.
2. Enhanced ability to select relevant primary and secondary materials and to deploy this evidence.
3. Analytical and interpretative skills in presenting an argued case in written form.

Personal Values Attributes (Global / Cultural awareness, Ethics, Curiosity) (PVA):

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Summative assessment for this module is 1 x 2000-word essay and a 1 x 2,000 word close, middle, distant reading exercise. These assignments will measure the breadth of your knowledge and assess all learning outcomes for this module by testing your knowledge of key modernist texts, your understanding of the relationship between modernism and its social contexts and subject-specific professional skills (critical analysis, selection of appropriate texts and supporting materials for your exam responses, analytical and interpretative skills). This assessment addresses KU 1 & 2 and IPSA 1, 2 & 3.

You will have the opportunity to practice these skills in two pieces of formative assessment 1) an Essay Plan and Bibliography in semester 1), 2) a Close Textual Analysis exercise in semester 2. Your tutor will provide you with personalised feedback on your essay plan and bibliography in semester 1. In semester 2, students will be given feedback on their formative assignment, a close reading of a text. Workshops on ‘close, middle and distant reading’ using digitised archives will provide the opportunity for students to extend their understanding of print culture in the early twentieth-century.

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This module explores the relation between literary modernism and its historical contexts. From the New Woman to World War I, the European ‘scramble for Africa’ to the expansion of consumer culture, modernism was responding to seismic economic, social and cultural shifts. Modernist writers were engaged in ‘Making it new’ by pushing against the parameters of realism, reconceptualising the novel and ‘breaking the pentameter’. The texts you will study on this module are difficult and challenging but also exciting and surprising. In many ways, these modernist texts changed the way we see the world by experimenting with form and compelling readers to question the idea of a shared and fixed reality. This module is directly informed by staff research on modernist poetry, the short story and periodical studies. It draws on the latest pedagogic initiatives in modernist periodical studies to develop students’ media literacy and asks a question that is as relevant now as it was in the early twentieth-century: how does media technology influence or even determine the meaning of a text?