This course introduces you the idea of the ​‘modern’ through a study of a wide-range of influential texts written in the first five decades of the 20^th century. This course looks at the period of ​‘modernism’ which had global manifestations. We study texts from Europe and North America. You will learn important literary and critical concepts that emerged during this time through a close reading of texts. From Freud and Marx to sections of the The Surrealist Manifesto, this course spans texts and authors who lived through the major transformations in Western artistic and intellectual thought in the 20^th century.