Modern European Fiction

Catalog description

This course is a survey in modernist European fiction. Beginning with Dostoevsky’s “Notes from Underground,” which addresses alienation and the struggle between the individual and utilitarian modern society, we will move on to explore: inner city life in James Joyce, the absurdity of the modern condition in Kafka, sexual awakening in DH Lawrence, stream of consciousness in Virginia Woolf, the trauma of war in Rebecca West, the search for beauty in Thomas Mann, and the theme of memory in Marcel Proust.