ENGL 214 - Process, Prose, Pedagogy

Semester Offered: Spring
1 unit(s)

(Same as MEDS 214) An exploration of the intersections among language, form, genre, and medium, this course aims to deepen our appreciation for and understanding of multimodal authorship. To do so, we focus our critical gaze upon one of the more experimental periods of textual production: literary modernism. Together, we consider selections of poetry, short fiction, the novel, woodcut narratives, autobiography, letters, manifestos, essays, and film produced by a diverse range of authors that may include H.D. and Djuna Barnes, Mu Shiying and Mikhail Bulgakov, Max Jacob and Zora Neale Hurston––as well as more canonical figures like James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and Henry James. Our discussions center on the ways in which writing emerges from its immediate historical contexts, and also how genre and medium look beyond their present moment, revising models inherited from the past and anticipating future forms of expression. As such, we have the opportunity to produce both critical and creative writings throughout the term. Ultimately, this course helps us to better analyze and construct arguments about distinct types of texts through the sustained practice of close critical reading and recursive writing, and to sharpen our ability to facilitate dialogue about complex ideas and various modes of communication. Matthew Schultz.