English 125D

Other Readings and Media

Proust, M.:  Remembrance of Things Past, Volumes 1-3 (translated by Moncrieff and Kilmartin)

Description

By reading one of the most significant 20th-century novels in detail, the course will attempt to answer questions about the thematic concerns and formal techniques of modernism.  The relationships between changing conceptions of language and desire, of the individual subject, and of the pressures of history, as these are figured in the particular rhetorics and structures of this paradigmatic novel, will provide the central axes of our investigation.  Active in-class participation and a willingness to engage in both copious reading and regular dialogues are the only prerequisites for the course. Please note that we will be reading all of Proust's novel, rather than, as is often the case, only the first and last chapters (volumes).