Lecturer: Dr. Jonathan McCreedy
Course Description and Aims: The aim of this course is to provide students with an introduction to the artistic period broadly titled “Modernism” at the turn of the century and beginning of the 20th century.
Lectures will focus on modernist literature written in English originating from the British Isles – for instance, by the authors James Joyce, T.S Eliot, and Virginia Woolf. Stylistic experimentation and the concept of “making it new” will be of foremost importance during the study of each writer’s work.
However, this course will take continental European trends in modernism into account in relation to movements that influenced the primary authors on the course. Modernism was a phenomenon heavily centralised around Paris, which functioned as a “hub” for aesthetic experimentation in the arts. Students will be introduced to the importance of Paris in terms of its overall presence within modernism. Writers including Proust, Baudelaire and Rimbaud will receive attention as will the classical music works by Igor Stravinsky – who lived in the city for the majority of the early 20th century. Study of his works will involve biographical teaching as well as a simplified introduction to his musicological experimental techniques. To offer additional background and comparison, the compositions of his rival, “The devil of 20th century classical music”, Arnold Schoenberg will be briefly analysed. An introduction to Freud and psychoanalysis is another essential component as its concepts substantially influenced stylistic experimentation in countless European modernistic works.
Taken all together, classes will progress chronologically from modernism’s tentative beginnings in the late 1800’s through to its explosion of experimental ideas at the turn of the turn of the century, and finally to its conclusion in the 1940’s – roughly marked by the deaths of Joyce, Woolf, and W.B Yeats.
The course in conclusion aims to provide students detailed knowledge of the primary modernist trends in British prose and poetry and how to identify them for independent literary analysis. Their immersion in the topic of continental European modernism – in literature, music and psychoanalysis – is intended to inspire them to extend the boundaries of their research into foreign language and interdisciplinary territories.
- Teacher: Джонатан Маккрийди
In the words of Jacques Derrida, „literature … stands on the edge of everything, almost beyond everything, including itself. It's the most interesting thing in the world, maybe more interesting than the world, and this is why, if it has no definition, what is heralded and refused under the name of literature cannot be identified with any other discourse. It will never be scientific, philosophical, conversational.”
Despite literature’s resistance to its identification with any other field, literary works inevitably communicate, in no matter how sophisticated a form, with their reader.
This course aims to familiarize students with four major strands in communication theory which are related to the peculiar field of literature and literary studies.
The introductory presentations/lectures/materials will set the theoretical background for analytical readings of specific literary texts in different genres: fiction, poetry, drama etc. Most of the activities in the course will be practically oriented. Students will be expected to approach literary texts from different perspectives in a series of short written responses as well as participate in online debates and discussions based on tasks assigned by the instructor.
- Teacher: Любомир Терзиев
Lecturer: Dr. Angel Igov
[EN below]Курсът цели да запознае студентите с тези тенденции в съвременния британски роман, които са свързани с общия интелектуален климат на постмодернизма в западния свят. Специфичната британска рецепция на постмодерните нагласи и разбирания ще бъде очертана с разглеждане на конкретни автори и произведения от началото на 60-те години на ХХ в. до наши дни: Джон Фаулз, Анджела Картър, Иън Макюън и др. Сред обсъжданите теми са относителността и множествеността на гледните точки, деконструкцията на класическото романово повествование, метафикционалността, новите подходи към историческото писане, постколониалните перспективи, ребилитацията на маргинализирани гласове, пренаписването на канонични наративи. Допълнителна перпектива към литературните произведения ще бъде подадена от филмовите адаптации на определени романи.
Студентите ще придобият богата представа за разнообразието на съвременния британски роман в контекста на постмодернизма и ще задълбочат познанията си за постмодерната мисъл. Прецизният прочит на конкретни произведения ще развие уменията им за аналитично четене и литературоведска интерпретация. Ще бъде насърчено аналитичното разбиране за особеностите при филмовата адаптация на литературни произведения.
The course aims to introduce students to those tendencies in the contemporary British novel related to the general mental climate of postmodernism in the West. The specific British reception of postmodern attitudes is traced through the discussion of particular authors and works from the 1960s to this day: John Fowles, Angela Carter, Ian McEwan, etc. Topics feature the relativity and multiplicity of viewpoints, the deconstruction of traditional novel narrative, metafictionality, new approaches to historical writing, postcolonial perspectives, the acknowledgement of marginalized voices, and the rewriting of canonical narratives. Additional perspectives are provided by the film adaptations of particular novels.
Students will form an extensive picture of the contemporary British novel's variety in the context of postmodernism, and will enhance their understanding of postmodern thought. Analytic thinking about peculiarities in the film adaptation of literary works is encouraged.
- Teacher: Ангел Игов