This course considers some of the major developments in American literature between 1910 and 1940. Noting parallel tendencies in the visual arts, lectures explore the rise of literary modernism and the social forces that impacted the poets and prose writers of the time. Participants gain a basic familiarity with some of the major American schools of writing of the early-twentieth century and discover points of contact among the writers themselves, and among the writers and visual artists of the period.

Cody Walker
All levels of students
August 4–7, 10:15 am–12:45 pm

For more information, download the course syllabus (PDF) and visit augustfrye.blogspot.com.

In conjunction with the upcoming Frye exhibition Open Roads and Bedside Tables: American Modernism in the Frye Collection (September 26, 2009–January 10, 2010), two summer courses explore themes and ideas found in American painting and literature during the early- to mid-twentieth century. Participants forge connections between the visual and the literary arts in these courses taught by art historian Rebecca Albiani and literary scholar Cody Walker.
See related course: American Painting 1910–1940

Cody Walker

Walker received a Ph.D in English from the University of Washington (UW) and an M.F.A. in Creative Writing from the University of Arkansas. He is currently the 2009 Amy Clampitt Resident Fellow in Lenox, Mass. Walker taught for many years through Seattle Arts & Lectures’ Writers in the Schools program and at the UW, where he won the English department’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 2005. In 2007 he was elected Seattle Poet Populist. Walker’s work appears in The Best American Poetry, Slate, Parnassus, Shenandoah, Light, and elsewhere. His first poetry collection, Shuffle and Breakdown, was published in 2008 by The Waywiser Press.