Modern and Contemporary Epic

Catalog description

This course examines the attempts of four long novels from the twentieth and twenty-first centuries to recapture the epic tradition in the form of the modern novel: the modernist epic, the postcolonial epic, the postimperial epic, and the epic of globalization. During the semester, we will discuss how modern and contemporary authors depict how individuals can imagine connections and responsibilities to one another while undergoing rapidly changing notions of community, national belonging, and global citizenship.