R5B, Section 1: Reading and Composition: “Making It New”: Reading (Italian) Modernism

TT 8-9:30 | Instructor: Julia Nelsen

Units: 4

All Reading and Composition courses must be taken for a letter grade in order to fulfill this requirement for the Bachelor’s Degree. This course satisfies the second half or the “B” portion of the Reading and Composition requirement.

Beginning in the nineteenth century and continuing through the twentieth, writers and artists were grappling with a unique moment in history and its attendant changes: the appeals and anxieties of urban life; new media and technologies that transformed the experience of time, space, and human labor; world wars and political upheavals. Imagining such newness activated innovative modes of artistic expression that attempted to give voice to these experiences and simultaneously break free from what was perceived as the burden of literary and cultural tradition. Yet, in coming to terms with the “new,” writers also found themselves revisiting “old” forms, ideas, and spaces—particularly in a country such as Italy, often described as belated or backward with respect to the rest of bustling, industrialized Europe. In this course, we’ll examine some of the intersections and contradictions surrounding what is known as the “modernist” period, in Italy and farther afield: tradition and innovation; speed and slowness; the urban and the rural; the mechanical and the natural. We will consider these topics, among many, through active class discussion and regular assignments designed to cultivate critical thinking and refine the writing process.

Texts will likely be selected from among the following:

Campana, Orphic Songs

Pirandello, Shoot! The Notebooks of Serafino Gubbio

Futurist manifestoes and poetry

Woolf, Mrs. Dalloway

Eliot, The Waste Land

A course reader including poetry and prose by D’Annunzio, Govoni, Gozzano, Bontempelli, Svevo, Ungaretti, Montale, and others.

Prerequisites: Successful completion of the “A” portion of the Reading & Composition requirement or its equivalent. Students may not enroll in nor attend R1B/R5B courses without completing this prerequisite.