Document Type

Syllabus

Publication Date

Spring 2024

Course Description

We begin with two poems by Langton Hughes published in 1951 in a book called Montage of a Dream Deferred. Our course is called "Something Underneath," because by the end of fourteen weeks, you should have begun to form more than a few ideas about what is "underneath" the many texts we will have read. Our texts, which will include poetry, painting, music, stories, a novel, and the multi-genre text by another contributor to the Harlem Renaissance, Jean Toomer, come out of what we will call MODERNISM, a term we will be unpacking and trying to understand for the whole of the term. In many ways these texts all wil be asking you to consider what is "underneath" them. Few follow what we might call conventional ways. Modernism, if it can be defined, generally works against something, its texts and surfaces beg you to see beneath them at a reality you might not have considered before. Truth, as Emily Dickinson will suggest, is "slant."

The Teaching Assistant for this course is senior Hary Burgan. You'll soon find out that he loves ot think about how these texts fit or don't fit certain theoretical frameworks and definitions. He'll contribute to our class in constantly reminding us of the ideas and notions at play underneath the literature we will read, the art we'l examine, and the music we will listen to. Many of the works we'll explore come out of the late 19th and early 20th century. We'l likely read only one or two things from this century, but that doesn't mean we won't be thinking about the contemporary. Because like our own time where technical innovation and vast changes in the media in which we gain information and express ourselves have transformed the ways in which we think and interact, the modern era of the early twentieth century wil look surprisingly familiar. So prepare yourself to read and experience quite alot. And be prepared to contribute your own understandings and ideas to our discussions every week.

Student Outcomes

  • Students will be able to better formulate ideas and articulate and develop those ideas in writing.
  • Students will be able to write more clearly and concisely and gain the W competency in writing.
  • Students will be able to analyze texts and identify how those texts are connected to one another and a larger historical movement.
  • Students will be better able to interpret poetry, literature, music and art.
  • Students will be able to identify key features of modernism and compare individual works with one another.

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