ENG-40067 - Module Specification
School of Humanities
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Programme/Approved Electives for 2020/21

Available as a Free Standing Elective

Co-requisites

None

Prerequisites

None

Barred Combinations

Keele UG students who have taken ENG-30078 Modernist Manifestos and Magazines will not be able to take this module.

Description for 2020/21

At the beginning of the twentieth century, the `little magazine¿ was at its height. Novelists, poets, artists, philosophers, critics and political activists were all publishing their work and their ideas in small, independently-run magazines and journals. In some cases writers and artists were actually the editors of these magazines and journals.
This module has an online archive, The Modernist Journals Project (MJP), as its core text (http://www.modjourn.org/). MJP is an exciting and comprehensive open-access archive of modernism¿s `little magazines¿. Most of the magazines, journals and anthologies studied on this module are available in full on the MJP website and the others (Fire!! and the manifestos of Marinetti and Loy) are available on other free internet repositories. Each week will look specifically at one or two issues of the journal in question, but you are encouraged to read widely across the digital archive.
The module is divided into two sections. The first, `Political Manifestos¿, outlines some of the key social and political issues of the day, and serves as an introduction to the way politics were being discussed by writers and artists. The second section, `Aesthetic Manifestos¿ highlights some of the artistic and cultural statements of intent being produced by modernist writers in the early twentieth century. There is necessarily some crossover: many of the aesthetic manifestos are also political, and the political manifestos are frequently preoccupied with art and aesthetics. Students will be asked to consider the role of the literary magazine as a vehicle for progressive social change.

This module will introduce Masters students to the modernist period via a consideration of magazines and the publication history of certain modernist texts. They will study these texts in their original context as serialised magazine pieces and will then look at the material and cultural significance of those contexts. Students are asked to consider why manifestos were so important to the period, both in terms of politics and aesthetics, and what place manifestos (non-traditional literary texts) have in literary studies. This module's approach is historicist and culturally and materially contextual.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Apply an advanced critical understanding of the cultural and material contexts of publication to the analysis of literature.: 1,2
Apply relevant theoretical methodologies and evaluate their usefulness to the field of study.: 1,2
Appraise and critique prose, poetry, and non-fiction articles from the early twentieth century in light of their cultural contexts, demonstrating a nuanced critical appreciation of how the contexts have informed the literature and vice versa.: 1,2
Utilise and analyse advanced critical approaches, and articulate this in written work.: 1,2
Engage in close analysis of texts (poetry and prose), to an advanced critical level, and communicate this in extended written form.: 2
Carry out independent and original research, assimilate and synthesise research and present this in written form.: 1,2
Devise, develop, construct, and sustain a critical and original argument in written work.: 2
Communicate the complex history of a magazine and its significance to literary studies to a wider public, making connections between the cultural and material context of the magazine and the significance of the literature it contains as literature.: 1

Study hours

22 scheduled contact hours with ENG-30078 (11 x 2-hour weekly session)
6 hrs of individual tutorial time with tutor
34 hours researching and executing the blog post assessment
72 hours researching and writing the final essay
166 independent study hours for seminar/tutorial preparation

School Rules

None

Description of Module Assessment