Global Modernisms, Plural Modernisms
Carlos Colmenares Gil
Comparative Literature
In this course we will travel the world to examine how artists and different artforms came together, during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, to shape our understandings of modernity and its relationship with phenomena and ideas such as: consciousness, perception, emancipation, reality, war, and oppression.
We will look at art and literature from a comparative perspective to reflect on these big topics, with a focus on the ethics of collectivity in artistic movements and groups, and how they collaborated to advance aesthetic and political projects.
Specifically, we will study Impressionism and Post-Impressionism, Surrealism, Négritude, Brazilian Modernismo, The Harlem Renaissance, and Contemporary Existentialism. Our analysis will move across literature in its different forms (novel, poetry, essay), as well as painting, photography, film, and music; and we will look at artists from Brazil, Senegal, Martinique, Cuba, Mexico, France, Germany, the US, and Japan, among others. The course dynamic will be a combination of lecture and discussion, and the major assignments are: 5 short papers (2 pages), the revision and reworking of one of the short papers into a final long paper (7-8 pages), plus participation and attendance.
This class meets with CMLT-C 256.
Catalog Information: HON-H 233 GREAT AUTHORS, COMPOSERS, AND ARTISTS