Re-Orienting Modernity: Lepers, Hermits, Mutes

Catalog description

Lepers, hermits, mute dervishes, hallucinating doppelgangers, and the possessed: do these marginal figures stand for the paradoxes of modernity far from the Western center? What does modernity mean for the Global South, in particular the Islamic East? Is there an indigenous modernity, beyond Western influence? In the course, we will look at how key texts and films produced in the run-up to Iran's 1979 Islamic Revolution build on a modernist aesthetic while at the same time displacing the West's claims to progress and enlightenment. Drawing on postcolonial theories, the recent transnational turn in literary studies, and close analyses of the works themselves, we will examine ideas of center and periphery, power, identity, and selfhood in order to re-orient our understanding of modernity. As a final project, students may choose to submit a critical essay, film, collection of poems, and/or an original work of art. Open to undergraduates and graduates. Taught in English.