Books on order at Buffalo Street Books

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1 English 6525: Modernism, Media, and Mediation Jeremy Braddock Spring 2016 Braddock <at> cornell <dot> edu Goldwin Smith 160 Goldwin Smith 136 Thursday 2:30-4:25 office hours Tuesday 12:30-2:30 What was the position of literary writing among the new media technologies that emerged in the first half of the twentieth century? How did modernist writers respond to a social and political situation in which access to media and information was at once widely distributed, and consolidated by corporations and the state? This class pursues continuities between past and present, against today's claims of heroically disruptive innovation and new crises for literature. Reading a range of key media theorists, and considering literary modernism as a phenomenon that developed throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the seminar will examine the way specific means of storage and transmission (radio, phonography and gramophone, photography, film, and several forms of print) were both represented and employed by a range of literary writers. Written work will include a book review (1000 words), an abstract (250 words), and either a final paper ( words) or two conference-length papers (3000 words). A word on the book reviews. Each week has one or two suggested books for review; it's possible, with my permission, to substitute a book of your choosing, if you find another that has relevance in a given week. Each student will circulate their review to the class no later than 8:00 the evening before class; the book review is part of the next day's reading assignment. They should be written in the mode of a book review for an academic journal; it may be worth reading a few of these as they appear in a journal like Modernism/modernity or ALH, if you're unfamiliar with the genre. If you choose a very recent book to review, you might also submit it for publication. Books on order at Buffalo Street Books Theodor Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture (Routledge ) Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings (Harvard UP ) Bob Brown, The Readies (Roving Eye ) or free download from Roving Eye Anne Anlin Cheng, Second Skin: Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface (Oxford UP ) John Dos Passos, 1919 (Mariner P ) Kenneth Fearing, The Big Clock (NYRB ) Kenneth Fearing, Clark Gifford's Body (NYRB ) Lisa Gitelman, Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture (MIT P ) Langston Hughes, Ask Your Mama (Alfred A Knopf ) or Collected Poems (Vintage ) Mina Loy, Insel (Melville House ) Marshall McLuhan, Counterblast (Gingko P ) Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts and The Day of the Locust (New Directions ) Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form (Routledge ) 1

2 January 28 introduction: multiply mediated Joyce James Joyce, "Aeolus," Little Review (1918) and Shakespeare & Co. (1922) versions Joyce, phonograph recording from 'Aeolus' Raymond Williams, "From Medium to Social Practice," "Mediation" Additional reading: Tony Bennett, "Theories of the Media, Theories of Society" Leo Marx, "Technology: The Emergence of a Hazardous Concept" Adrian Curtin, "Hearing Joyce Speak: The Phonograph Recordings of 'Aeolus' and 'Anna Livia Plurabelle'" Damien Keane, "Quotation Marks, the Gramophone Record, and the Language of the Outlaw" February 4 little magazines Poetry magazine, vols. 1 and 2 (especially issues 1.1, 1.4, 1.6, 2.1) Robert Scholes and Clifford Wulfman, from Modernism in the Magazines Michael North, "Visual Culture" John Guillory, "Genesis of the Media Concept" Robert Darnton, "What is the History of Books?" (specifically the "The Communications Circuit" graphic on page 12) Additional reading: Richard Jean So and Hoyt Long, "Network Analysis and the Sociology of Modernism" Bartholomew Brinkman, "Making Modern Poetry: Format, Genre, and the Invention of Imagism(e)" Book review: John Timberman Newcomb, How Did Poetry Survive? David Suisman lecture, " The Sonic Spaces of Military Power," 124 Lincoln Hall, 4:30-6:00 February 11 gramophones Langston Hughes, Fine Clothes to the Jew Bessie Smith, gramophone recordings Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim, Sonny Boy Williamson, Blues in the Mississippi Night (Alan Lomax recordings) Lisa Gitelman, from Always Already New (introduction and chapter 2) T.W. Adorno, "The Curves of the Needle" (1927); "The Form of the Phonograph Record" (1934) Additional reading: Katherine Biers, "Syncope Fever: James Weldon Johnson and the Black Phonographic Voice" Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity Book review: Alexander Weheliye, Phonographies: Grooves in Afro-Sonic Modernity Jonathan Sterne: The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction Lisa Gitelman, Scripts, Grooves, and Writing Machines: Representing Technology in the Edison Era 2

3 February 18 cinema John Dos Passos, 1919 Miriam Hansen, "The Mass Production of the Senses: Classical Cinema as Vernacular Modernism" Catherine Driscoll, "Moving Pictures: Cinema as Modernism" Bertolt Brecht, from "Against Lukács" (77-85) Walter Benjamin, "Reply to Oscar A. H. Schmitz" Dziga Vertov, Man with a Movie Camera Additional reading: André Bazin, "The Ontology of the Photographic Image" Michael North, from Camera Works: Photography and the Twentieth- Century Word Book review: Susan McCabe, Cinematic Modernism: Modernist Poetry and Film David Trotter, Literature in the First Media Age: Britain Between the Wars February 25 little magazines 2, cinema, new media transition magazine (no , June 1930), "Revolution of the Word" manifesto Bob Brown, The Readies [and Readies simulator] Bernard Stiegler, from Technics and Time Walter Benjamin, "Theory of Distraction" Michael North, from Camera Works Jessica Pressman, from Digital Modernism Additional reading: Jonathan Sterne, "Format Theory" Louis Mumford, Technics and Civilization Book review: Mark Goble, Beautiful Circuits: Modernism and the Mediated Life March 3 media and madness Mina Loy, Insel Friedrich Kittler, from Discourse Networks 1880/1900 ( ) Andrew Gaedtke, "From Transmissions of Madness to Machines of Writing: Mina Loy's Insel as Clinical Fantasy" Jessica Burstein, from Cold Modernism: Literature, Fashion, Art Additional reading: Loy, "Feminist Manifesto," "Songs to Joannes," "Parturition" Tyrus Miller, "More or Less Silent: Mina Loy's Novel Insel" Book review: Pamela Thurschwell, Literature, Technology and Magical Thinking, This afternoon: Catherine Driscoll lecture "Classifying the Minor," 4:30 English Lounge 3

4 March 10 architecture Anne Anlin Cheng, Second Skin: Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface Beatriz Colomina, from Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media Kate Marshall, from Corridor: Media Architectures in American Fiction Book review: Aaron Jaffe, Modernism and the Culture of Celebrity Judith Brown, Glamour in Six Dimensions: Modernism and the Radiance of Form March 17 Hollywood cinema Nathanael West, The Day of the Locust Mark McGurl, "The Novel, Mass Culture, Mass Media" Walter Benjamin, "The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility," "Chaplin," "Chaplin in Retrospect," "Mickey Mouse," "The Formula in Which the Dialectical Structure of Film Finds Expression" Additional reading: Rita Barnard, from The Great Depression and the Culture of Abundance Book review: Wesley Beal, Networks of Modernism: Reorganizing American Narrative March 24 mass print in the 1930s and 1940s Nathanael West, Miss Lonelyhearts Kenneth Fearing, The Big Clock Kenneth Fearing, "Jack Knuckles Falters" Walter Benjamin, "A Critique of the Publishing Industry" Theodor Adorno, from The Stars Down to Earth; "Culture Industry Reconsidered," March 31 spring break Additional reading: Brian Rajski, "The Organizational Aesthetic in Kenneth Fearing's The Big Clock" Walter Benjamin, "Karl Kraus" Book review: Robert Vanderlan, Intellectuals Incorporated: Politics, Art, and Ideas in Henry Luce's Media Empire Justus Nieland, Feeling Modern: The Eccentricities of Public Life April 7 media institutions case study: television Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form Theodor Adorno, "How to Look at Television" Additional reading: Raymond Williams, from The Politics of Modernism Book review: Bruno Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology 4

5 April 14 radio drama and propaganda Archibald MacLeish, The Fall of the City and Air Raid (radio broadcasts and scripts) Orson Welles, The War of the Worlds (radio broadcast and script) Neil Verma, from Theater of the Mind Walter Benjamin, "Theater and Radio," "Two Types of Popularity: Fundamental Reflections on a Radio Play" Adorno, "Culture and Administration" Book review: Jason Loviglio, Radio's Intimate Public: Network Broadcasting and Mass Mediated Democracy Todd Avery, Radio Modernism: Literature, Ethics, and the BBC Debra Rae Cohen, Michael Coyle, and Jane Lewty, eds., Broadcasting Modernism April 21 radio propaganda Kenneth Fearing, Clark Gifford's Body Ezra Pound, radio broadcasts (recordings and transcriptions) Benjamin Friedlander, "Radio Broadcasts" Damien Keane, from Ireland and the Problem of Information abstracts due in class Additional reading: Damien Keane, "An Ear Toward Security: The Princeton Listening Center" Adorno, "Freudian Theory and the Pattern of Fascist Propaganda" Book review: Mark Wollaeger, Modernism, Media, and Propaganda Gerd Horton, Radio Goes to War: The Cultural Politics of Propaganda During World War II April 28 modernism, music media, and decolonization Langston Hughes, Ask Your Mama: 12 Moods for Jazz Langston Hughes, audio recording of Ask Your Mama Tsitsi Jaji, from Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity Kathy Lou Schultz, from The Afro-Modernist Epic and Literary History Additional reading: John Lowney, "Jazz, Black Transnationalism, and The Political Aesthetics of Ask Your Mama" May 5 how high modernism framed media studies Wyndham Lewis, Blast Marshall McLuhan, Counterblast Marshall McLuhan, from Gutenberg Galaxy Hugh Kenner, from The Counterfeiters John Guillory, "Marshall McLuhan, Rhetoric, and the Prehistory of Media Studies" Additional reading: Hugh Kenner, Blast 3 (in Kroch Library) Richard Grusin, "Radical Mediation" Book review: Jerome McGann, New Republic of Letters 5

6 Books on reserve in Olin Library In addition to several scholarly monographs, there are three edited collections of source materials on reserve you may wish to consult, particularly in the preliminary stages of essay writing. Wendy Chun and Tom Keenan, eds. New Media/Old Media: A History and Theory Reader Paul Marris and Sue Thornham, eds., Media Studies: A Reader, 3 rd ed. The SAGE Handbook of Media Studies T.W. Adorno, The Culture Industry: Selected Essays on Mass Culture Walter Benjamin, The Work of Art in the Age of its Technological Reproducibility and Other Writings Peter Brooker and Andrew Thacker, eds., The Oxford Critical and Cultural History of Modernist Magazines, vol. 2. Anne Anlin Cheng, Second Skin: Josephine Baker and the Modern Surface Debra Rae Cohen and Michael Coyle, eds., Broadcasting Modernism Beatriz Colomina, Privacy and Publicity: Modern Architecture as Mass Media Lisa Gitelman, Always Already New: Media, History, and the Data of Culture. Scripts, Grooves and Writing Machines Mark Goble, Beautiful Circuits: Modernism and the Mediated Life Miriam Hansen, Cinema and Experience: Siegfried Kracauer, Walter Benjamin and Theodor W. Adorno Aaron Jaffe, Modernism and the Culture of Celebrity Tsitsi Jaji, Africa in Stereo: Modernism, Music, and Pan-African Solidarity Damien Keane, Ireland and the Problem of Information Hugh Kenner, The Counterfeiters Friedrich Kittler, Discourse Networks 1880/1900. Gramophone, Film, Typewriter Bruno Latour, Aramis, or the Love of Technology Kate Marshall, Corridor: Media Architectures in American Fiction Susan McCabe, Cinematic Modernism: Modernist Poetry and Film Marshall McLuhan, Gutenberg Galaxy: The Making of Typographic Man 6

7 Lewis Mumford, Technics and Civilization Michael North, Camera Works: Photography and the Twentieth-Century Word John Durham Peters, The Marvelous Clouds: Toward a Philosophy of Elemental Media. Speaking into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication Robert Scholes and Clifford Wulfman, Modernism in the Magazines: An Introduction Jonathan Sterne, The Audible Past: Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction Bernard Stiegler, Technics and Time Emily Thompson, The Soundscape of Modernity: Architectural Acoustics and the Culture of Listening in America, David Trotter, Literature in the First Media Age: Britain Between the Wars Neil Verma, Theatre of the Mind: Imagination, Aesthetics and American Radio Drama Alexander Weheliye, Phonographies: Grooves in Afro-Sonic Modernity Raymond Williams, Television: Technology and Cultural Form 7