106-412 Modernism, Fascism, Communism

Credit Points:

Coordinator:

Timetable:

Contact:

Subject Description:

An examination of the links between the aesthetic doctrines and practices of early twentieth-century modernism and the political ideologies of fascism and communism. The subject provides an introduction to the political contexts in which modernist programmes of aesthetic innovations were developed in the Inter-war period; a familiarity with Marxist and Nazi debates about the political 'tendencies' of modernist aesthetics; and an understanding of how certain canonical modernist writers and film-makers have been critically positioned in relation to fascist and socialist causes.

Assessment:

Prescribed Texts:

Course reader available from the department. Any edition of the following texts:

• G Adair, Death of the Author
• D Barnes, Nightwood
• B Brecht, The Measures Taken
• M Bulgakov, The Master and Margarita
• T S Eliot, Collected Poems
• D H Lawrence, Three novellas
• W Lewis, The Revenge for Love
• T Mann, Doctor Faustus
• K Marx and F Engels, The Communist Manifesto
• R Skelton ed, Poetry of the Thirties
• Films: S Eisenstein, Battleship Potemkin
• F Lang, Metropolis
• L Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will