ENG 486 - Seminar: Special Topics

Instructor
Churchill

Brilliant Exiles: American Women in Paris, 1900-1939

In the early twentieth century, Paris became a magnet for American women seeking to break free from the constraints of home. The City of Lights offered them liberty to redefine themselves, experiment with form and identity, and participate in the international movement known as modernism. This seminar examines the work of three groundbreaking writers-Gertrude Stein, Mina Loy, and Gwendolyn Bennett-who, whether in Paris or beyond, challenged artistic norms and expanded the boundaries of language, race, gender, and aesthetics.

Through close readings of their poetry, prose, and visual art, we will explore how these writers responded to modernity, from Stein’s radical syntax, to Loy’s avant-garde provocations, and Bennett’s fusion of Harlem Renaissance innovation with European influences. How did expatriation enable new forms of creative and personal expression? How did their work negotiate tensions between belonging and otherness, experimentation and tradition? How did they form networks of community and find publication outlets for their work? Combining literary analysis and archival research with historicist, feminist, queer, and critical race theory perspectives, this seminar invites students to consider the cultural forces that shaped modernism and the women who defied expectations to define it.

Satisfies Literary Studies, Creative Writing, and Rhetoric requirement.
Satisfies Justice, Equality, and Community requirement.
Satisfies Global Literary Theory Major and Minor
Satisfies Gender and Sexuality Studies Major and Minor