Course syllabus

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Course Description and Learning Goals: English 206 will investigate the idea of space, particularly city space, in modernist culture and literary production. Many modernist thinkers are characterized by their fascination with the rise of urban mass society and the phenomena attendant upon it: new possibilities for consumerist self-definitions, racial mixing, sexual exploration, and delicious anonymity. In response to the works we read and view, and inspired by visits to important modernist sites in Auckland, we will approach questions like:

  • How is the metropolis negotiated in fiction, art and film?
  • In what ways do the city, and the relationship between urban and rural space, influence modernist artistic techniques? 
  • How are the inner spaces of the mind mapped in response to the exteriors of the great cities of modernism such as London, New York, Dublin?
  • How do Auckland’s early twentieth century architecture and monuments respond to the modern, and modernist, age?

Students taking the course will expand their knowledge of modernism as a multimedia, multicultural phenomenon; of fictional and visual representation; and of ways to read poetry, fiction and film within the context of English literature studies. They will also develop a general or background understanding of twentieth century approaches to space in New Zealand, Europe and the United States.

 

Assessment Information (see further details in Assessments folder)

  • 10%: participation in and contributions towards discussion
  • 40%: four draft entries for portfolio
  • 50% final “playlist” portfolio

 

Required texts: All books required in English 206 are available at the University Bookshop and also reserved on Short Loan; shorter texts are available electronically and you can link to them through Canvas.

You are strongly encouraged to use the course edition of the texts.

You should always have a physical copy of the text with you during lectures and tutorials.

 

To reinforce your sense of historical context, works are listed below chronologically by date of publication, not in the order in which we read them:

 

  1. Katherine Mansfield, selected short stories [“How Pearl Button Was Kidnapped” (1912), “Prelude” (1917), “At the Bay” (1922), and “The Garden-Party” (1922)]
  2. James Joyce, Ulysses (selections); 1922
  3. Jean Toomer, Cane; 1923
  4. Virginia Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway; 1925
  5. Fritz Lang (dir.), Metropolis (film); 1927
  6. Nella Larsen, Passing; 1929
  7. Henry Roth, Call It Sleep; 1934

 

Suggested texts:

Suggested additional readings are all on Canvas/Talis, and are listed on the course outline on the dates for which they should be read.

 

Schedule of Assigned Readings, Lectures and Major Assessments

 

Week 1

9 March          Introduction and Cane

  • 10 March tutorials Cane, Part I; review course requirements and meet librarian     

 

Week 2

16 March        Jean Toomer, Cane

Additional suggested reading:

    • Robert Bone, “Jean Toomer’s Cane” (link from Canvas)
  • 17 March tutorials Toomer

 

Week 3

22 March Item #1 due in hard copy and uploaded to TurnItIn by 4 pm

23 March       James Joyce, excerpts from Ulysses (Episode 1, “Telemachus” 17; Episode 4, “Calypso” 12)

Additional suggested reading:

  • Georg Simmel, “The Metropolis and Mental Life” (Canvas)
  • 24 March tutorials meet at Civic Theatre, corner of Queen and Wellesley Streets

 

Week 4

30 March        James Joyce, excerpts from Ulysses (Episode 10, “Wandering Rocks”)

  • 31 March tutorials Joyce

 

Week 5

6 April                        Nella Larsen, Passing

Additional suggested reading:

  • Melville H. Herskovits, “The Negro’s Americanism” (Canvas)
  • James Weldon Johnson, “Harlem: The Culture Capital” (Canvas)
  • 7 April tutorials Larsen

 

Week 6

12 April Item #2 due in hard copy and uploaded to TurnItIn by 4 pm

 

13 April          Nella Larsen, Passing

  • no tutorials 14 April due to holiday

 

SEMESTER BREAK

 

Week 7

  • May             Katherine Mansfield, selected short stories

Additional suggested reading:

  • Richard Brock, “Disapprobation, Disobedience and the Nation in Katherine Mansfield’s New Zealand Stories” (Canvas)
  • 5 May tutorials Mansfield

 

Week 8

10 May Item #3 due in hard copy and uploaded to TurnItIn by 4 pm

 

11 May           Mrs Dalloway, first half

Additional suggested reading:

  • Benjamin D. Hagen, “A Car, a Plane, and a Tower: Interrogating Public Images in Dalloway” (Canvas)

 

  • 12 May tutorials Meet at Auckland Art Gallery/Toi O Tamaki, corner of Kitchener and Wellesley streets

 

Week 9

18 May           Mrs Dalloway, entire novel

  • 19 May tutorials Woolf

 

view Metropolis independently

 

Week 10

25 May           Fritz Lang (dir.), Metropolis

Additional suggested reading:

  • Helmut Einhorn, “Dislocation and Modern Architecture in New Zealand”
  • 26 May tutorials Lang

 

Week 11

31 May Item #4 due in hard copy and uploaded to TurnItIn by 4 pm

 

1 June             Call It Sleep, first half

Additional suggested reading:

  • Josh Lambert, “Unclean Lips: Dirty Words and Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep” (Canvas)
  • 2 June tutorials Roth

 

Week 12

  • June             Call It Sleep, entire novel

Additional suggested reading:

  • Maren Linett, “The New Womanly Mensch? Modernism, Jewish Masculinity and Henry Roth’s Call It Sleep” (Canvas)

 

 

15 June, final portfolios due

Course summary:

Date Details Due