This module tracks the paradigmatic shifts in American writing, theatre and film through the lenses of race, class and sexuality. You will study the features of modernist and postmodernist aesthetics, consider the social, economic, and technological forces which motivated the shift from modernism to postmodernism, and understand the ways in which literature, drama and film are transformed under the new cultural conditions. You will learn how to identify the features of modernism and postmodernism in each mode and analyse texts using discipline specific conceptual frameworks e.g. the literary, the performative and the visual/industrial.


The module is arranged into 3 key blocks – literature, drama, film – tracing developments in each mode from the emergence of modernism to what has been seen as the exhaustion of postmodernism. You will gain a thorough grounding in theories of the modern and postmodern and the features of each. You will then be able to apply these to the texts studied and test the efficacy of decision making through practice. Specialists in critical theories, literature, drama and film will deliver classes in each block. At each stage, you will consider the compositional as well as critical importance of the work being studied and will combine your knowledge of compositional, critical, representational and performance issues in the final, collaborative assignment. You will also draw upon the dramaturgical work you have been building since Level 4 when approaching the theatre texts on this module and the practical work.



Indicative practitioners and texts:


John Dos Passos, Manhattan Transfer (1925)

Nella Larsen, Passing (1929)

Arthur Miller, The Crucible (1953)

--- , Death of a Salesman (1950)

LeRoi Jones, Dutchman (1964)

Orson Welles (Dir), Citizen Kane (1941)

Siri Hustvedt, What I Loved (2003)

Paul Hoover (ed), Postmodern American Poetry: A Norton Anthology (1994)

Susan-Lori Parks, The Imperceptible Mutabilities in the Third Kingdom (1998)

Lana Wachowski and Lilly Wachowski (writers and Dir.), The Matrix (1999)

Cormack McCarthy, The Road (2006)

All individually assessed


ASSESSMENT 1: Presentation – On one text from the module, you can choose from: a) a class presentation in pairs, b) leading a portion of a class (individually or in pairs) or c) making a podcast (in pairs or 3s). This mid semester assessment supports in garnering feedback for your progression. [LO 1, 2].


ASSESSMENT 2: Essay – 2000 word analysis of TWO texts from the module (excluding the one chosen for the presentation assignment). [LO 1, 2, 3]


ASSESSMENT 3: Production –you will work in groups to produce a dramatic interpretation (the form of which is to be negotiated by the group and the module tutor but could be a rehearsed reading, a scene or an adapted passage from a novel) of all or part of a text from the module (can be texts used in the other assignments). [LO 1, 4]

Weekly 3 hours mixed mode teaching sessions will be used in traditional and innovative ways to engage with the texts to be studied. Sessions will, at different times, include talks, workshop, seminar, screenings and performance workshops.

The assessments support the learning done in class by encouraging you to apply critical and creative solutions to the questions that the module materials pose.

1. Demonstrate knowledge of thematic concerns American literature, drama and film

2. Analyse the development of representational styles employing critical and theoretical perspectives relevant to 20th and 21st century cultural forms

3. Interpret the development of cultural forms in their socio-historic contexts

4. Employ knowledge of text and context in the dramatic interpretation of one module text

AV within mixed-mode teaching space

Drama Studio.

Film Theatre

VLE

Balshaw, M. (2000), Looking for Harlem: Urban Aesthetics in African-American Literature. London: Pluto.

Bigsby, C. (2010). The Cambridge Companion to Arthur Miller. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Childs, P. (2000). Modernism. London: Routledge.

Etherington-Wright, C and Doughty, R. (2011). Understanding¿Film Theory. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan.

Geyha, P (ed.) (2017). The Cambridge Companion to Postmodern American Fiction. Cambridge: CUP.

Hulfeld, S. (2012). The Cambridge Companion to Theatre History. Cambridge: CUP.

Jemeson, F. (1991). Postmodernism, or, the cultural logic of late capitalism. London: Verso.

Levenson, M (ed.) (2011). The Cambridge Companion to Modernism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Listengarten, J and Benedetto, S (eds.) (2021) The Cambridge Companion to American Theatre since 1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Mambrol, N. (2017). ‘Modernism, Postmodernism and Film Criticism’. Literary Theory and Criticism. (https://literariness.org/2017/07/01/modernism-postmodernism-and-film-criticism/)

Ruland, R. and Malcolm B. (1991). From Puritanism to Postmodernism. London: Penguin.

Stoneley, P.;¿Weinstein, C. (eds.) (2008). A¿Concise¿Companion¿to American¿Fiction,¿1900-1950. Oxford: Blackwell.

The focus of this module is on innovation in American literature, drama and film. We will track the emergence of modernism at the beginning of the 20th century and its cultural expression, and examine the forces that motivate the shift to postmodernism in the second half of the century, identifying key cultural features as they emerge and consider how to theorise American culture in the 21st century.


Cultural production in the US during the 20th and 21st centuries has been convulsed by paradigm shifts which have radically altered artists’ ‘ways of seeing’ and art’s ‘modes of representation’.


The shift from modernism to postmodernism has been theorised in a number of ways: culturally, technologically, economically. Each paradigm has resulted in some of the best known works of the 20th and 21st centuries. You will read and watch novels, plays and films to understand the representational capacities of each form and to appreciate how they negotiate the new modes of representation created by cultural innovation. Artists will include John Dos Passos, Nella Larsen, Siri Hustvedt, Arthur Miller, Susan-Lori Parks and the Wachowskis.