GLI B4654 -

Institution:

The New School

Subject:

Description:

The Modernist Imagination Spring 2009. Robert Boyers The word modernism has come to stand for a great range of activities and ideas. Early in the 20th century it was often used to express an opposition to tradition and to conventions associated with realism and romanticism. Some influential modernists claimed that the new forms of art embodied a quasi-religious force with the capacity to redeem the chaos and nihilism of contemporary culture. Still others viewed modernism in exclusively aesthetic terms, praising its commitment to formalism, myth, and irony as an expression of "values only to be found in art" (Clement Greenberg).Modernism, however, is now widely felt to be a relic of times past. Although modernists like Joyce, Kafka, Proust, and Picasso continue to excite critical commentary, younger artists typically turn elsewhere for inspiration. What was modernism, and what precisely is the nature of its enduring value In an effort to address these questions, the course examines a variety of primary works (by writers like Thomas Mann, Franz Kafka, T.S. Eliot, and Virginia Woolf and artists like Picasso, Duchamp, and Pollock) and a smaller number of critical texts (by Octavio Paz, Clement Greenberg, Lionel Trilling, and Susan Sontag). The course also devotes attention to three seminal modernist films: Ingmar Bergman's Persona, Federico Fellini' s 8 and Jean-lucGodard's The Married Woman.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.newschool.edu

Phone Number:

(212) 229-5600

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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