Department of European Studies & Modern Languages, Unit Catalogue 2009/10 |
EU20666: Blasting the past: the European avant-garde |
 Credits:
| 6 |
| Level:
| Intermediate |
| Period: | Semester 2 |
| Assessment:
| CW 33%, EX 67% |
| Supplementary Assessment: | Like-for-like reassessment (where allowed by programme regulations) |
| Requisites:
| Before taking this unit you must take EU20009 |
| Description: | Aims: * To continue the chronological overview of major artistic and literary movements started in French Cultural Studies 2A: From Realism to Abstraction: Disintegration of the Image. * To provide an introduction to the radical experimentation carried out by avant-garde practitioners from the early twentieth century to the Second World War, particularly in Paris, and the influence they have had on contemporary visual and verbal output. * To pursue a comparative approach to analysis, taking into account a wide variety of genres, both visual and verbal, from prose to poetry, from collage to performance. Learning Outcomes: A student who completes the unit will be able to: * demonstrate understanding of literary and visual cultures, as well as their interaction and development, in the first half of the twentieth century. * engage in comparative analysis of interdisciplinary production. * show knowledge of how these avant-garde movements have impacted contemporary output and infiltrated everyday life and discourse. Skills: Skills in critical analysis, conceptual thinking, precision in the use of written and spoken language, exercise of independent judgement, reasoned argument, teamwork and the planning/conduct/reporting of non-quantitative research are developed and assessed in this unit. Language skills are developed in this unit. Content: Various European avant-garde movements, such as Futurism, Dada and Surrealism, will be examined through representative texts in French, including prose, poetry and manifestoes. Their relationship with the visual arts, photography and film will also be investigated. Writers and artists to be studied include: Guillaume Apollinaire, Blaise Cendrars, Tristan Tzara, André Breton, Louis Aragon, Pablo Picasso, Joan Miró, Alberto Giacometti and Man Ray. |