Jonathan P. Eburne

Freshman Seminar:

Surrealism, Experimental Literature, and

Modern Life

Seminar: CMLIT 083S

This course provides an introduction to the group of young writers, artists, and

intellectuals who, in Paris soon after the first World War, launched a movement that

strove to “change life” and “transform the world.” From the early 1920s through the late

1960s, the surrealist movement grew from a local group of French and German poets

and artists into a truly international movement, gaining adherents in Brazil, Mexico, Haiti,

Martinique, the United States, Egypt, Senegal, Japan, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Spain,

and England. Combining an interest in Freudian psychoanalysis with a growing

commitment to radical politics, the surrealists approached many of the great issues of

the twentieth century with an intensity that could be as comical and as playful as it was

deadly serious. Games, group activities, and public scandals were as much a part of the

movement’s repertoire as its major works of literature and art. As an introduction to the

study of comparative literature, this course will study the movement’s internationalism as

well as its peculiar changes in voice, from the political to the playful.

Drawing from primary sources in surrealist stories, poems, essays, art objects, and

political tracts, as well as from secondary readings in criticism, we will examine

surrealism from a variety of perspectives. In particular, this course will study the ways in

which surrealist works address problems─or introduce problems─within the experience

of everyday life in the modern world. What does it mean to be “modern?” Is reality

something decided by politicians, doctors, and lawyers, or is it subject to change and

revision? How can the forces of love and desire be expanded and set free from social

constraint? How might it be possible to change the world? What does it mean to be truly

free?

All readings will be in English. Students will be required to participate in class discussion,

to prepare group presentations on specific course readings, and to submit writing to the

class’s online message board. There will be a variety of short writing assignments

throughout the semester, in addition to a take-home midterm essay and a final paper.

There will be no final exam.

Course Sect. Sch.# Time Cr.

CMLIT 083S (GH/IL) 001 644317 T R 1:00P-2:15P 3