Modernism and Modernity.

Catalog description

We all have an understanding of what the term "modern" means. But what is "modernist"? This course examines the multifaceted and complex relationship between these two concepts during the first half of the 20th century. It introduces students to modernism as a broad literary, artistic, cinematic, and philosophical phenomenon and interrogates its development against the back-drop of the rise of modernity since the 19th century. Placing its focus on the German and Austrian tradition from Nietzsche to Walter Benjamin, the course asks how modernism took shape in radical innovations across numerous genres, art forms, and media.