Modernism and Material Culture (EASM151)

30 credits

This module will explore questions of materiality in modernism. Ranging across modernist poetry, novels and drama, as well as the films, and avant-garde movements of the period,  it will investigate the objects and things highlighted by modernist writers, artists and directors, the ways in which they describe the materiality of everyday life (including examining clothes, houses, the weather, modernist technologies and commercial objects), and matters relating to the body, phenomenology, and modernist language. Offering an opportunity to investigate a range of texts and films, this module will also engage with important theories of ‘things’ and materiality. Through thinking in depth about material culture, the module will provide you with a close, sophisticated knowledge of the composition of modernism and of early twentieth-century life; it will also introduce you to exciting recent developments in modernist studies, suggesting avenues for further research.