Handbook 1996 : Faculty of Arts (Volume 3 page 60)
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106-412 Aesthetes, Avantgardists, Modernists

Year 4 English.

Credit points: 16.7 4th year

Coordinator: David Bennett.

Contact: One 2-hour seminar per week.

Timetable: Second semester

Objectives:

Students who complete this subject successfully will:

• have a general understanding of the different cultural and artistic programmes associated with aestheticism, the early twentieth-century avant-garde and modernism, respectively;
• have a general understanding of the relationship between these artistic movements and the social, cultural and political conditions (including the rise of socialism and fascism) to which they were responding;
• have a detailed knowledge of certain representative texts/writers associated with these movements.

Content:

This subject examines the relationships between late nineteenth-century aestheticism, the early twentieth-century avant-gardes (e. g. surrealism, expressionism) and the 'high' modernist movement, including their respective attitudes toward mass culture, technology, sexuality and contemporary political movements. In particular, the subject examines theories of art in the modern period as variously 'autonomous', 'oppositional', or 'integrated' with everyday social and political life.

Assessment:

Written work of not more than 6,000 words.

Prescribed texts:

• (Please note that any edition of the following texts is acceptable
• ) Barnes D Nightwood. Brecht B The Caucasian Chalk Circle. Eliot T S Collected Poems. German B ed. Surrealist Poetry in English. Huxley A Brave New World. Mann T Death in Venice. Stein G Selected Writings. Wilde O The Picture of Dorian Gray. Woolf V The Waves. Film: Lang F Metropolis. Course reader available from the department

Recommended texts:

• Calinescu M Five Faces of Modernity Duke UP
• Ellmann R and Feidelson R eds The Modern Tradition. Huyssen A After the Great Divide: Modernism, Mass Culture, Postmodernism Indiana UP
• Lunn E Marxism and Modernism Verso
• Russell C Poets, Prophets and Revolutionaries: The Literary Avant-Garde from Rimbaud Through Postmodernism Oxford UP
• Timms E and Collier P eds Visions and Blueprints: Avant-garde Culture and Radical Politics in Early Twentieth-century Europe.

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Handbook 1996 : Faculty of Arts (Volume 3 page 60)

Status:          Official 1996
Date created:    Oct  9 1995
Last modified:   Oct  9 1995
Authorised by:   Academic Registrar
Email enquiries: Course_Information@registrar.unimelb.edu.au

Copyright © University of Melbourne 1995,1996.