This course investigates the debated term modernism. We will explore a wide range of critical works on periodization, avant-garde movements, irony, stream of consciousness, and other key terms, to examine several major literary works of modernism, including selections from Woolf, Rilke, Marinetti, Pirandello, Musil, Joyce, and Kafka. Each student will select a representative work from a national literary tradition to contextualize for the class and research.