Syllabi, Selected Assignments, and Essays

Classroom Materials

Syllabi

Instructor Course Title Institution Course Type Course Level Course Duration Subject Period National Literature Course Topics/Structure MJP Mags Studied Figures Studied Notes
Modernism In and Beyond the “Little Magazines” (Winter 2007): syllabus University of Delaware seminar undergraduate & graduate 04 weeks, 22 classes 1890s – 1925 British, American Anglo-American Print Culture in the 1890s — Modernism in the Public Sphere, 1907-1913 — Locating the Cultural Avant-Garde, 1912-1920 — Marketing Modernism across the High/Low Culture Divide — Material Modernism and the New Harlem Renaissance Studies Blast, [Crisis], English Review, [Little Review], New Age, [New Freewoman], [Others], Poetry Robert Blatchford, James Joyce, Harriet Monroe, Ezra Pound Paper topics are included in the syllabus.
Collier, Patrick Magazines: Crucibles of the Literary Ball State University senior seminar undergraduate: advanced 16 weeks, 31 classes 1880 – 1940 British, American Theorizing the Literary and Periodicals — Periodical Culture(s) 1: James, “The Jolly Corner” — Henry James and the Print Marketplace — Periodical Culture(s) 2: Katherine Mansfield & The New Age — Periodical Culture(s) 3: Blast — Periodical Culture(s) 4: Others, Poetry Magazine Blast, English Review, New Age, [Others], Poetry, Review of Reviews Henry James, Katherine Mansfield
Drouin, Jeff Modernist Magazines and Digital Humanities City University of New York, Brooklyn seminar undergraduate 04 weeks, 17 classes 1900 – 1920s British, American Modernism, Magazines, Digital Humanities — Topics of Early Modernism, 1900-1914 — 1914-1915, Blast & Commodity Culture — 1914-1919, The Great War & Modernist Discourses — 1920+ 1910 Collection, Blast, Blue Review, Coterie, Dana, English Review, New Age, Owl, Poetry, Rhythm, Scribner’s, Tyro, Wheels Course includes lab work and student contributions to a class website.
Hart, Matthew English Avant-Gardes University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign honors seminar (research colloquium) undergraduate: advanced 14 weeks, 14 classes 1910 – 1922; 1960 – 1976 British The “High Modernist” Era of 1910-1922 — The English Avant-Garde Revival of 1960-1976 1910 Collection, Blast, New Age Wyndham Lewis, Ezra Pound, Virginia Woolf
Latham, Sean Modernism in the Archive University of Tulsa seminar (research-based) undergraduate: advanced 13 weeks, 26 classes 1900 – 1950 British Modernism as Archive — Public and Private Texts — Modernism and Magazines — Into the Archive Blast, New Age Cyril Connolly, T. S. Eliot, George Orwell, Ezra Pound, Jean Rhys, Stevie Smith, Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf
Latham, Sean Periodical Culture University of Tulsa senior seminar undergraduate: advanced 13 weeks, 26 classes 1910 – 1950 British How magazines contribute to literary culture and affect the way we regard book literature New Age, [Others], Scribner’s Cyril Connolly, Ernest Hemingway, Katherine Mansfield
Morrison, Mark Researching Modernist Little Magazines Penn State University seminar graduate 15 weeks, 15 classes 1900 – 1940s British, American, French This course uses little magazines to “explore issues of the print culture and public sphere of modernity, the promotional culture of the early 20th century, the dynamics of avant-garde movements, the imbrication of modernism and political, social, and cultural issues of the day, and…the bibliographic code of a text” Blast, [Egoist], [Little Review], [New Freewoman] F. S. Flint, James Joyce, F. T. Marinetti, Dora Marsden, Ezra Pound, Rebecca West, W. B. Yeats Reading list foregrounds numerous items of interest in individual issues of New Freewoman, Egoist, and Little Review.
Rogers, Gayle Modernism, Periodicals, and Literary History University of Pittsburgh seminar graduate 15 weeks, 15 classes 1900 – 1930 mostly English and American, some Irish and global history of modernist studies, material modernisms, emergence, world literary history, reception, serialization Blast, Blue Review, Crisis, Egoist, English Review, Freewoman, Little Review, New Age, New Freewoman, Poetry, Rhthym, Scribner’s, Tyro, 1910 Collection Eliot, Pound, Joyce, Fitzgerald
Steinlight, Emily Magazine Culture: Literature, Aesthetics, and Modernity, 1709-2007 Brown University seminar undergraduate 14 weeks, 36 classes 1700s – present British, American The 18th-Century English Magazine and the Culture of “Manners” — Print and the Public Sphere in Early America — Romantic Authorship and the Critical Reviews — Popular Radicalism and the Press — Journalism, Sketches, and Social Research in the 19th Century — The Professional Critic and the Victorian Literary Public — The Little Magazine, Modernity, and the Cultures of Modernism — Modern Nationalism, Race, and the Press — Producing Consumers: Advertising, Publicity, and Commercial Culture — Debating Mass Media — “Public Intellectuals” and the Cultural Politics of Publishing — The Magazine in the Age of New Media Blast, New Age
Wollaeger, Mark British Modernism Survey (English 325) Vanderbilt University seminar graduate 14 weeks, 14 classes 1890s – World War II British See literary figures studied in the course. New Age John Buchan, Joseph Conrad, T. S. Eliot, Ford Madox Ford, E. M. Forster, James Joyce, D. H. Lawrence, Wyndham Lewis, R. L. Stevenson, Rebecca West, Virginia Woolf Course looks to The New Age to flesh out the historical context for the literature assigned during much of the semester.

Selected Assignments

Instructor Title Course Purpose/Goal Subject Matter Activities Involved Final Product Notes
Collier, Patrick Periodical Report Assignment ? Students familiarize themselves with a periodical and sum up its character. A dozen periodicals published between 1890 & 1930. research, reporting written report
Drouin, Jeff Project #2: Topics of Early Modernism, 1900-1914 Modernist Magazines and Digital Humanities Students explore how a single topic is variously expressed in a single MJP magazine. One of six MJP magazines: Blue Review, Dana, English Review, New Age, Poetry, Rhythm. research, collaboration, reporting collaborative blog post, individual contributions toclass timeline Students work in groups of 3, and each group tackles a different theme in a different journal.
Drouin, Jeff Project #3: Modernism, Magazines, and the Great War, 1914-1919 Modernist Magazines and Digital Humanities Students explore how World War I affects a specific topic/theme in multiple magazines. Six MJP journals published between 1914 and 1919: Blast, New Age, Owl, Poetry, Scribner’s, Wheels. research, collaboration, reporting collaborative blog post, individual contributions toclass timeline Students work in groups of 2-3, and each group works on a different topic/theme.
Hart, Matthew Research Project on The New Age English Avant-Gardes Students research a theme or personality associated with The New Age. The New Age from 1907 to 1922. library research, developing a research question 3-5 page report that answers an empirical question about the magazine Sample questions about the New Age included.
Latham, Sean New Age Reading Reports Modernism in the Archive Students research a regular contributor to The New Age and compose a short biography about him/her. The New Age from 1907 to 1922. research, composing an impartial encyclopedia-type entry, writing with sources 4-page essay Some of the reading reports have been published as bios on the MJP website.
Latham, Sean Group Periodical Survey Reports Magazine Cultures [Periodical Culture] Students apply to various journals the techniques for assessing/reading magazines they’ve learned in class. One of nine journals owned by the library. research, collaboration, oral presentation 15-minute group presentation about a magazine
Rogers, Gayle Reviews of Modernists and Modernists as Reviewers The Modernist Tradition [survey of modernism] Students search MJP for reviews by/of modernist figures that complicate course discussion. Book reviews in MJP periodicals. searching, summary, analysis two-page analysis of reviews

Essays

Author Essay Title Course Instructor Course Composed For Description of Assignment MJP Magazines & Articles Discussed Other Key Texts Key Terms & Phrases Abstract/Thesis/Key Ideas Selected Quote
Epstein, Josh and Katherine Fusco and Brian Rejack Mapping Motorphobia: Motorcars, Culture, and Howards End Wollaeger, Mark British Modernism Survey (English 325) Students compose a collaborative essay (7 pp.) that uses the New Age to flesh out some context of a literary work. Dyce, O. W., “Motorphobia,” New Age 1908-9-12 (3.20): 385-6 — Eder, M. D., “On Culture,” New Age 1910-1-6 (6.10): 224 Forster, E. M., Howards End (1910) culture, in-betweenness, motorcar, “only connect,” rootless living, socialism, suburbs, train travel, walking “Using the New Age articles as a lens for rereading Howards End, [the authors] were able to recontextualize the novel’s central concern with ‘in-betweenness,’” specifically by “reexamining the novel’s interest in place through the ideas of the suburbs and commuting.” “In its presentation of multiple crisscrossing discourses, The New Age suggests ways of understanding both the content of Howards End and the roads not taken by Forster. By revealing the multiplicity of ideas available to Forster at the time he was writing Howards End, The New Age archives raise questions of intent—why did Forster select the paths he did in constructing his novel?”
Graydon, Ben and Kimberly McColl Joyce’s Portrait: Nationalism, Exile, and the Police Wollaeger, Mark British Modernism Survey (English 325) Students compose a collaborative essay (7 pp.) that uses the New Age to flesh out some context of a literary work. Bechhofer, C. E., “Letters from Ireland,” New Age 1916-12-28 (20.9): 206-7 — Book Review of ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man’ by James Joyce, New Age 1917-7-12 (21.11): 254 — Boyd, Ernest A., “Has Ireland an Immortal Soul?” New Age 1917-1-11 (20.11): 248-9 — Pound, Ezra, “Affirmations VII: The Non-existence of Ireland,” New Age 1915-2-25 (16.17): 451-3 Joyce, James, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (1916) discipline, exile, Ireland, Irishness, irony, modernism, nation, police, race, surveillance “When Stephen is read as a police figure disciplining an Ireland under suspicion of non-existence, his childhood isolation begins to take shape as an early example of surveillance. But for Stephen to survey Ireland as a nation, he must get outside of it. Exile, then, is a crucial element to the disciplining work of the police-author.” “By leaving, Stephen will be able to write an Ireland that is not constituted simply by an Irish race. He will be able to resist the essentialized definitions of Ireland (as put forth by Orage and Boyd, for example), represented in the diary by the old man in the mountain cabin….”
Thompson, Nafissa and Lauren Wood Locating Lawrence’s Lost Girl: Contemporary Debates in the New Age Archive Wollaeger, Mark British Modernism Survey (English 325) Students compose a collaborative essay (7 pp.) that uses the New Age to flesh out some context of a literary work. Anson, Leah, “The Women’s Movement,” New Age 1912-9-12 (11.20): 476-7 — Hastings, Beatrice, “What is Feminism?” New Age 1913-5-8 (13.2): 46 — Kennedy, J. M., “Three Classes of Women,” New Age 1913-5-1 (13.1): 8 — Macgregor, Margaret, “A Plea for Reason in Marriage,” New Age 1911-3-23 (8.21): 486 — Reckitt, Maurice B., “Women in a Guild Socialist State,” New Age 1915-3-11 (16.19): 510-2 Lawrence, D. H., The Lost Girl (1920) cinema, cinematograph, marriage, nickelodeons, professions for women, work The authors map the debate about working women in the New Age onto Lawrence’s novel. “Though Lawrence does not appear to be passing judgment on different classes of working women, instead providing his readers with multiple examples at diverse social levels, many of the writers for the New Age certainly voiced their strong opinions on the matter.”
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