Ecs100a European Modernism

ECS100a European Modernism Instructor: Steve Dowden Office: Shiffman 211 Office hours: MW 2-3 Tel. 63218

The purpose of this course is twofold. First, students are to be introduced to the practice of seminar study. A seminar course is one in which we work cooperatively. It is the professor’s task to design and moderate the course, but it is the task of the participants to give it substance. This substance will take four forms (none of which is an exam). First, you will be asked to offer specialized reports to the group at one of our meetings. These presentations are not pro forma exercises; they will constitute 30% of your final grade and should be taken with the utmost seriousness. You will be graded closely on the quality of your oral presentation. It must penetrate the assigned topic, communicate your thoughts clearly and provocatively to the class, and generate good class discussion. I recommend that your produce a “thesis sheet” as a handout to go along with your report. A thesis sheet summarizes your main points and gives your classmates something concrete to mull over. Second, class discussion is very important in a seminar. Generally the quality of seminar discussion reflects the quality of the presentation on which it is based. All students without exception are required to participate. Third, you will be expected to write one protocol for at least seminar sitting. This entails taking notes and writing them up. They will be read aloud, by you, at the beginning of the next sitting and, once everyone is agreed on their content, they will be posted on our LATTE site. Fourth, you will be expected to write a final paper of ca. 10-12 pages. This is to be a research paper with notes and bibliography. Note well that a research paper is not a report of what you find in secondary literature. It is a topic that you develop by your own lights, one that is merely supported by what you find in the secondary literature. Our topic in ECS 100a this year is the problem of modernism. In the most general sense “modernism” is customarily taken to refer to the art, music, architecture and literature that at the beginning of the twentieth century was in search of a new orientation. The world had changed, many noticed, and the unprecedented destruction that rained down on Europe during the First World War suggested that these changes had not been for the better. Nourished especially by the writings of Nietzsche and Freud, the modernist imagination rejected the assumptions of the Victorian age, often seeking cultural and spiritual renewal through art. What was modernism? Was it an encompassing movement in which a few universals can be discerned, or did modernism mean the end of such common denominators? Was it an experiment that failed? Has its time even passed? Is postmodernism a departure from the modernist tradition, or is it rather a decadent phase of modernism? Can there even be a “modernist tradition,” or is the idea a contradiction in terms? How does high modernism differ from late modernism? Have the masterpieces of late modernism been slighted? Or is the category of “masterpiece” one that modernism has challenged and discarded?

Texts: Thomas Mann, Death in Venice and Other Stories (trans. Luke, 978-0553213331); Benjamin Britten: Death in Venice, libretto (978-0571514533); Osip Mandelstam, Poems (9780892550067); T. S. Eliot, The Waste Land and other Writings (978-0375759345); Franz Kafka, The Castle (trans. Bell, 978-0199238286) DO NOT USE ANY OTHER TRANSLATION, ONLY THIS ONE!; Herbert Marcuse, The Aesthetic Dimension (978-0807015193). FICTION, MUSIC, FILM: Mann, Visconti, Britten Monday Sept. 8: Thomas Mann: Death in Venice, 195-230 Wednesday, Sept. 10:) Thomas Mann: Death in Venice concluded, 230-263 Monday Sept. 15: Dorrit Cohn, “The Second Author of Der Tod in Venedig,” Probleme der Moderne, 223-45 (LATTE) Wednesday Sept. 17 Luciano Visconti: Death in Venice (LATTE) Monday Sept. 22: Benjamin Britten: Death in Venice Wednesday Sept. 24: Britten: Death in Venice

CRITICISM: HERBERT MARCUSE Monday Sept. 29: Marcuse: The Aesthetic Dimension Wednesday Oct. 1: Marcuse conference (5 page paper on Death in Venice is due)

THE NOVEL Monday Oct. 6: Franz Kafka’s Thomas Mann: “Tonio Kröger” (Death in Venice essay due) Oct. 8 Kafka, The Castle, 5-42 Oct. 13 Kafka, The Castle, 43-86 Oct. 15 Kafka, The Castle, 87-119 Oct. 20 Kafka, The Castle, 120-177 Oct. 22 Kafka, The Castle, 178-206 Oct. 27 Kafka, The Castle, 207-237 Oct. 29 Kafka, The Castle, completed Nov. 3 Theodor Adorno: “Notes on Kafka”

POETRY Nov. 5: T.S. Eliot, The Waste Land, pp. ix-xxvii (“How to Read…,” Mary Karr); 38-59; 186-196; (Steiner, “On Difficulty”) Wednesday Nov. 12 Rilke Baudelaire (Benjamin essay, or Auerbach) or “The Painter and Modern Life”

Monday Nov. 17 Osip Mandelstam (Dante essay) Wednesday Nov. 19 Rilke (Bernstein essay; also Best Words Best Order; Musil eulogy) Monday Nov. 24 ECS Fall Chocolate Cake Lecture: "The Musilanguage Hypothesis and the Origins of Poetry," Guest lecture by Anna Christina Ribeiro (Philosophy, Texas Tech University) Wednesday Nov. 26 Thanksgiving Break Monday Dec. 1 Celan poems (Adorno: “Lyric Poetry and Society”; Heidegger, “Poetically Man Dwells”; www.stanford.edu/dept/fren-ital/opinions/mitchell2.html Wednesday Dec. 3 Translation as the cosmopolitan renewal of poetry

Monday Dec. 8, Last day of classes Final paper due: Monday, Dec. 15

ECS100 Course Policies Attendance Students will be allowed two unexcused absences. Any other absences will have an impact on a student's final grade, which will be lowered by one third of a letter grade for each unexcused absence.

Grading Your final grade will be broken down as follows: 35% for the final paper, 25% for the oral presentation; 20% for the first paper, and 20% for your protocol and verbal participation in class meetings.

Student Participation Grades: A: Students who receive an “A” for participation come to every class. They have not only read the assigned texts and watched the movies, but also thought about them and formulated questions to ask and issues to raise. They take risks in discussion by sharing thoughts or positions about which they are not 100% certain. Moreover, A students listen and respond thoughtfully to issues raised by other students. B: Students who receive a “B” for participation have completed all the reading and film assignments on time, but do not always come to class with questions in mind and do not put much independent thought into the readings. B students wait for someone else to take the lead. They participate, but only occasionally. C: “C” students attend class, complete the assignments, and listen attentively to the discussions, but rarely participate unless directly asked a question. “D” and “E” students eat and chew gum in class (drinks are allowed, but not anything that requires chewing). These students fail to complete the reading assignments, fail to participate in classroom discussion, and are unable to answer questions when called upon; they fail to bring their readings and notes to class or are frequently late, absent, inattentive, or doing work for other classes during seminar time. These students will receive a D or lower for their participation grade.

 Preparing a Protokoll:

Students are required to keep a record of the minutes for one seminar meeting. This assignment is a graded writing project. You must observe the same pieties as in any formal paper. 1. Length: about one page, single spaced. 2. Due: The day of the class meeting after the seminar on which you are reporting. 3. Oral Reading: You will read your protocol aloud at the beginning of the next class meeting. At that time your classmates will have the opportunity to ask for corrections or revisions. Once the paper is complete to everyone’s satisfaction, your instructor will e-mail a copy to all seminar participants.  Final paper:  Your term paper should be about 10-15 pages long and contain about a dozen critical sources. Do not cite works that you do not use. Your topic can be an extension of your first paper; it can be an extension of your oral report; it can be anything else focusing on the works and topics of this course. It will be due on Dec. 15.

Guidelines for Writing a Term Paper in ECS100a

1. The purpose of this paper is for you to develop your proficiency in thinking about and writing about literature, art, and culture systematically, clearly, precisely, critically, and in depth.

2. Thesis: It is up to you to find and develop a topic, but I urge to visit me during my office hours so that we can discuss your plans for writing and research. 3. Research: A research paper is not a report on research. It is an essay in which you develop your own thinking about your topic. Research will aid you in this task, though, by demonstrating what others have thought. To find out what others have thought, you go to the library. (The internet web will not help much, even though sitting at a computer punching buttons does produce the illusion of accomplishing work.) It is a central purpose of this course to deepen your research skills. This means not only finding scholarly literature but understanding how to use it properly. In developing your topic you must aim to situate your thoughts in the discussions that have gone on before you in the secondary literature. You are not writing in a void or just for the professor of ECS 100. Instead, you are taking part in an ongoing conversation about modernism and modernity. You must locate yourself in this discourse by consulting what other people have written about the piece of it that interests you. 4. Length: 10-12 pages, double-spaced  Due: December 15, by 3:30 pm in my office or in my mailbox in 211 Shiffman. Your grade drops a letter for each day it is late.

 Bibliography: I will be expecting to see in the neighborhood of ten distinct critical sources. For questions of form for notes and bibliography, I’ll be handing out a stylesheet. Otherwise refer to the Chicago Manual of Style: http://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org.resources.library.brandeis.edu/16/contents.h tml

 5. General Advice:  A. Don’t wait until the last minute to throw a paper together. It will show and I will grade it accordingly.

 B. Proofread your paper carefully, and do not neglect the bibliography. I will be looking at it attentively for correct details.

 C. Wikipedia is not a critical source.

 D. Do not use “how” as a subordinating conjunction.

 E. When you have a draft finished, read it out loud to yourself or, even better, to someone else--if you can find someone not too busy to listen. Oral reading will help you to critique your language and to discover lapses of clarity in your argument.

 F. Do not ask for an extension unless you have some kind of major, insuperable, documentable difficulty.

 G. Reread Strunk and White: The Elements of Style.

Office Hours: I will hold office hours on Mondays and Thursdays 1-2 and by appointment. My office is in Shiffman, upstairs in 211. My e-mail address is [email protected] and I can be reached by phone at x63218. Disabilities: If you have documented disability on file at Brandeis University, please let me know so that the appropriate accommodations can be reached.