The Program Concentrations
Learn more about program concentrations and the faculty members who work in them:
Concentration: Literature, Modernity, and the Contemporary
This concentration provides a dual framework for considering the history of literature: the study of texts’ singular or innovative relation to the past—a measure of their modernity—as well as the exploration of their complex, sometimes contentious, relation to other discourses of the same historical moment—a measure of their contemporaneity.
This double perspective can apply to Europe even before the advent of the so-called “early modern” period during the Renaissance, charting a history of various modernities or modernisms, but it can also serve as the occasion to investigate the limits of considering any literature “modern” or “contemporaneous.” This concentration includes a broad range of courses investigating problems of periodization or genre, questions about aesthetics or creativity, and issues concerning literary form, the history of authorship and readership, and the teaching of literature.
Faculty researching and teaching in this concentration:
Examples of courses taught in this concentration:
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Department of English
University at Albany
State University of New YorkHumanities 333
1400 Washington Avenue
Albany, NY 12222
PHONE (518) 442-4055
FAX (518) 442-4599
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