EGH453 Mid-Century Modernism

Aims/Description: The module will engage with current research and scholarship relating to literature of the 'long modern' period (1930 to 1975), introducing you to the history and contemporary state of criticism and theory in relation to mid twentieth-century cultural production. You will receive a thorough grounding in research methods specific to the period. This is a period of unprecedented violence and transformation, from the momentous impact of totalitarian systems, the rise and impact of the Second World War on global culture, host to the worst events the world has ever experienced with the Holocaust and Bomb, the age of rapid and shifting groups and movements, existentialism through abstract expressionism to confessional, innovative and pop art styles. It is also an era of very deep reflection on the idea of the relations between systems of thought across disciplines. The module will chart that reflection as well as a forum for thinking about art's power in a world under new techno-political compulsions, be they nuclear-apocalyptic, Cold War-propagandized, or transnational, neo-imperial, superpowered or postcolonial.

Staff Contact: PIETTE ADAM C

Teaching Methods: Seminars, Independent Study

Assessment: Course work

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Teaching methods and assessment displayed on this page are indicative for 2025-26.