Browse Hierarchy COM6217: Comparative Modernisms

Too often, the literary movement of modernism is understood as originating in the West and subsequently travelling belatedly to the rest of the world. A narrow canon of Euro-American artists have come to be seen as the paradigmatic purveyors of modernist practice. This module examines why such assumptions have remained dominant, and explores ways to understand modernism anew. Students will be introduced to modernist practices from a range of non-Western literary contexts. Reading these literary experiments, we will ask how modernism can be redefined as plural, comparative, and transnational.