Kursthemen
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Welcome to...
the course room of the EC2U-Online Course "Research Methodology in European Modern Languages and Literatures" (summer term 2026).
Here you will find general and current information about the course as well as accompanying material and documentation.Timetable:
▪ Monday, 11-13 CET (France, Germany, Italy, Spain), 10-12 WET (Portugal), 12-14 EET (Finland, Romania), cum tempore
▪ Thursday, 15-17 CET (France, Germany, Italy, Spain), 14-16 WET (Portugal), 16-18 EET (Finland, Romania), cum tempore
You will find the access information directly in the respective "session" and they will be sent to you via e-mail in advance.Access Information:
For this reason, please consult this course room and information in the respective sessions here on Glocal Campus regularly. In case of doubt, please contact the main coordinator or the contact person of the respective university:
Language:
- English
- Presentation
of work/evaluation in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, German,
Romanian
Character:
- Compulsory
ECTS:
- 10
Contact Person at Each University:
- Coimbra: MANUEL PORTELA, e-mail: mportela@fl.uc.pt
- Iași: NICOLETA POPA, e-mail: nicoleta.laura.popa@uaic.ro
- Jena: THOMAS SCHMIDTGALL, e-mail: thomas.schmidtgall@uni-jena.de
- Pavia: ELISABETTA JEZEK, e-mail: jezek@unipv.it
- Poitiers: FREIDERIKOS VALETOPOULOS; e-mail: freiderikos.valetopoulos@univ-poitiers.fr
- Salamanca: PEDRO SERRA, e-mail: pergs@usal.es
- Turku: MIKKO KUKKONEN, e-mail: mikko.a.kukkonen@utu.fi
Content:
This internationally oriented online course will take a closer look at multidisciplinary approaches to various research methodologies in modern European languages and literaures. Drawing especially on linguistic, literary, but on cultural studies approaches as well, we will obtain an overview of different perspectives on research methodologies in European modern languages and literatures with the aim of developing a holistic understanding of the topic. Different sessions will also include methods of analysis that allow of the different methods of analysis that allow the interpretation of linguistic and literary texts and cover theoretical and practical knowledge for the contrastive and comparative research into European languages, literatures, cultures and societies.
Learning Objectives:
Students will...- acquire advanced
knowledge of research methodology in contact linguistics and in the study of
European literatures.
- acquire the ability to locate and manage specialised bibliographic sources on contact linguistics, comparative literatures, interculturality, intertextuality and intercultural communication, knowing how to locate and manage on- and offline documentary collections and applying information and communication technologies to the field of specialised philological research.
- develop the ability to apply the appropriate scientific methodology to cover the different types of linguistic, literary and cultural studies.
- acquire advanced theoretical and practical knowledge of the different situations of contact between European languages, literatures and cultures, also using information technology mechanisms for this purpose.
- acquire advanced theoretical and practical knowledge of the different contact situations between European societies, also using information technology mechanisms for this purpose.
- be provided with an in-depth knowledge of the cultural elements of European nations and develop their capacity for intercultural analysis, enabling them to acquire the intercultural competences necessary to work in international and multilingual environments and self-analysis in professional situations in order to improve their practice.
- acquire the necessary skills to carry out original research work in one of the philological fields covered by the Master's degree
Completion Requirements:
- Attendance required in at least 20 sessions
- Active participation
- Final paper of 10 pages
How to Use This Course Room...
- This
course room accompanies the online course "Research Methodology in Modern European Languages and Literatures". It
is divided in 26 sections. Each section corresponds to a session. Each
section provides you with all the relevant information for each session
such as the description of the content, literature or learning
material.
- Every
lecturer/university will manage their own sessions. The content will
only be visible when the respective lecturer/university opens the
session. This might differ from session to session.
- In the general Forum which we invite you to consult on a regular bases, you will find the latest news or updates about the course.
- For general information regarding the course, please contact the local contact person of your home university.
- For
any questions regarding a specific session, please consult the local
contact person (see above) of the respective university or the
respective lecturer.
- For questions regarding grading or examination, please contact the local contact person and the contact person of your home university.
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Öffnet: Freitag, 1. Mai 2026, 00:00Fällig: Mittwoch, 20. Mai 2026, 00:00
- English
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Session 1 (Monday, 27.01.2025): "Elementary ideas for new researchers. Gramsci and the concept of hegemony" (Mattia Bianchi, Salamanca)
Link Zoom
https://uni-jena-de.zoom-x.de/j/62698353757
ID de reunión: 626 9835 3757
Código de acceso: 205792
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Session 2 (Thursday, 30.01.2025): "Truth, science and ideology: the “illusion” of objectivity in research. Gadamer’s hermeneutics: intersubjectivity as a method." (Mattia Bianchi, Salamanca)
Zoom link:
https://uni-jena-de.zoom-x.de/j/64577930016
ID de reunión: 645 7793 0016
Código de acceso: 880381
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Session 3 (Monday, 03.02.2025): "Philology, new philology, radical philology (III): Sensorium: Bodies (Aesthetics; Design; Aesthesis)." (Pedro Serra, Salamanca)
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Session 5 (Monday, 10.02.2025): "Variation and use of English in multilingual/multicultural societies (I)" (Silvia Monti, Pavia)
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Video Conference Access information:
Enter Zoom Meeting
https://unipv-it.zoom.us/j/89284082239?pwd= eG1RUWFYTm5OeEYyR3dNWGxtMlBhQT 09
Meeting ID: 892 8408 2239
Access Code: 648179The course aims at illustrating the main dimensions of variation, i.e. social, geographical, situational, in the use of contemporary English in everyday speech patterns in multicultural/multilingual contexts of interaction (increasingly represented also in multilingual/multicultural audiovisual products belonging to different film genres) where:
◦ such language alternation phenomena as code-switching and code-mixing stand out both as key conversational practices in marking the speakers’ ethnolinguistic identity and as crucial vehicles of intercultural/interlinguistic mediation;
◦ new hybrid varieties of English, often resulting from language contact, emerge, and
◦ linguistic identities are constantly open to renegotiation, reconstruction and reinterpretation through language use.
Bibliography
Culpeper J., Kerswill P., Wodak R., McEnery T., Katamba F. (eds.) (2018) English Language. Description, Variation and Context (2nd Ed.), London: Palgrave (Chapters 11, 17, 19, 20, 21).
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Session 6 (Thursday, 13.02.2025): "Variation and use of English in multilingual/multicultural societies (II)" (Silvia Monti, Pavia)
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Enter Zoom Meeting
https://unipv-it.zoom.us/j/89284082239?pwd= eG1RUWFYTm5OeEYyR3dNWGxtMlBhQT 09
Meeting ID: 892 8408 2239
Access Code: 648179The course aims at illustrating the main dimensions of variation, i.e. social, geographical, situational, in the use of contemporary English in everyday speech patterns in multicultural/multilingual contexts of interaction (increasingly represented also in multilingual/multicultural audiovisual products belonging to different film genres) where:
◦ such language alternation phenomena as code-switching and code-mixing stand out both as key conversational practices in marking the speakers’ ethnolinguistic identity and as crucial vehicles of intercultural/interlinguistic mediation;
◦ new hybrid varieties of English, often resulting from language contact, emerge, and
◦ linguistic identities are constantly open to renegotiation, reconstruction and reinterpretation through language use.
Bibliography
Culpeper J., Kerswill P., Wodak R., McEnery T., Katamba F. (eds.) (2018) English Language. Description, Variation and Context (2nd Ed.), London: Palgrave (Chapters 11, 17, 19, 20, 21).
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Session 7 (Monday, 17.02.2025): "Variation and use of English in multilingual/multicultural societies (III) " (Sylvia Monti, Pavia)
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Video Conference Access information:
Enter Zoom Meeting
The course aims at illustrating the main dimensions of variation, i.e. social, geographical, situational, in the use of contemporary English in everyday speech patterns in multicultural/multilingual contexts of interaction (increasingly represented also in multilingual/multicultural audiovisual products belonging to different film genres) where:
https://unipv-it.zoom.us/j/89284082239?pwd= eG1RUWFYTm5OeEYyR3dNWGxtMlBhQT 09
Meeting ID: 892 8408 2239
Access Code: 648179◦ such language alternation phenomena as code-switching and code-mixing stand out both as key conversational practices in marking the speakers’ ethnolinguistic identity and as crucial vehicles of intercultural/interlinguistic mediation;
◦ new hybrid varieties of English, often resulting from language contact, emerge, and
◦ linguistic identities are constantly open to renegotiation, reconstruction and reinterpretation through language use.
Bibliography
Culpeper J., Kerswill P., Wodak R., McEnery T., Katamba F. (eds.) (2018) English Language. Description, Variation and Context (2nd Ed.), London: Palgrave (Chapters 11, 17, 19, 20, 21).
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Session 8 (Thursday, 20.02.2025): "Variation and use of English in multilingual/multicultural societies (IV) " (Silvia Monti, Pavia)
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Video Conference Access information:
Enter Zoom Meeting
https://unipv-it.zoom.us/j/89284082239?pwd= eG1RUWFYTm5OeEYyR3dNWGxtMlBhQT 09
Meeting ID: 892 8408 2239
Access Code: 648179The course aims at illustrating the main dimensions of variation, i.e. social, geographical, situational, in the use of contemporary English in everyday speech patterns in multicultural/multilingual contexts of interaction (increasingly represented also in multilingual/multicultural audiovisual products belonging to different film genres) where:
◦ such language alternation phenomena as code-switching and code-mixing stand out both as key conversational practices in marking the speakers’ ethnolinguistic identity and as crucial vehicles of intercultural/interlinguistic mediation;
◦ new hybrid varieties of English, often resulting from language contact, emerge, and
◦ linguistic identities are constantly open to renegotiation, reconstruction and reinterpretation through language use.
Bibliography
Culpeper J., Kerswill P., Wodak R., McEnery T., Katamba F. (eds.) (2018) English Language. Description, Variation and Context (2nd Ed.), London: Palgrave (Chapters 11, 17, 19, 20, 21).
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Session 9 (Monday, 24.02.2025): "The Kalevala and Finnish Language Policy: A Case Study in Constructing National Identity in 19th-Century Europe I/II" (Christian Niedling, Turku)
Zoom: https://utu.zoom.us/j/5663965694
Abstract:
The 19th century marked a pivotal era in the formation of Finnish national identity, with the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, playing a central role. Emerging from oral traditions documented by Elias Lönnrot, the Kalevala became a symbol of cultural unity and resistance during Finland's transition from Swedish to Russian governance. The lectures explore the intersection of folklore, language policy, and national identity through the lens of the Kalevala’s compilation. Drawing on parallels with other European epics (such as the Nibelungenlied), the analysis highlights the influence of Herder's theories on oral tradition and national spirit, as well as the impact of 19th-century romantic nationalism on language preservation and policy. The lectures also examine the strategic role of the Kalevala in legitimizing the Finnish language and culture in academic and political discourse, thus shaping a cohesive national consciousness amidst the geopolitical transformations of 19th-century Europe. -
Session 10 (Thursday, 27.02.2025): "The Kalevala and Finnish Language Policy: A Case Study in Constructing National Identity in 19th-Century Europe II/II" (Christian Niedling, Turku)
Zoom: https://utu.zoom.us/j/5663965694
Abstract:
The 19th century marked a pivotal era in the formation of Finnish national identity, with the Kalevala, Finland's national epic, playing a central role. Emerging from oral traditions documented by Elias Lönnrot, the Kalevala became a symbol of cultural unity and resistance during Finland's transition from Swedish to Russian governance. The lectures explore the intersection of folklore, language policy, and national identity through the lens of the Kalevala’s compilation. Drawing on parallels with other European epics (such as the Nibelungenlied), the analysis highlights the influence of Herder's theories on oral tradition and national spirit, as well as the impact of 19th-century romantic nationalism on language preservation and policy. The lectures also examine the strategic role of the Kalevala in legitimizing the Finnish language and culture in academic and political discourse, thus shaping a cohesive national consciousness amidst the geopolitical transformations of 19th-century Europe. -
Session 12 (Thursday, 06.03.2025): "Corpus Linguistics: Epistemological and Methodological Issues in Language Studies." (Cristina Petras, Iaşi)
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I. Introduction
This lecture proposes a reflection on the work of the linguist and an introduction to the field linguistics. In linguistics, one of the main issues is the relationship between type of data and theorization, with its epistemological consequences. In traditional grammar introspection data correspond to a hypothetical-deductive approach, while in field linguistics (or corpus linguistics) observational data involves an empirical-inductive approach (empirical investigations)
II. Epistemological issues
III. Methods of data collection
- language survey (questionnaries, interviews), participant observation, recording groups in interaction (ecological data - gathered in their environment - dinner, consultation, market, hotel, shop, phone, so on)
IV. Corpus
IV.1. A corpus is a construct
IV.2. Written corpora /vs/ Spoken corpora
IV.3. Corpus transcription. Corpus annotation
IV.4. What the corpus is used for (“corpus based /vs/ “corpus driven")
IV.5. Monitor corpora /vs/ balanced corpora /vs/ opportunistic corpora
IV.6. How to work on corpora?
IV.6.1. What type of corpus for what linguistic features? What kind of corpus approach (corpus-based or corpus-driven)
IV.6.2. Working on comparable corpora
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Session 13 (Monday, 10.03.2025): "Researching Popular Literature and Culture Pop Lit 1: Folksonomy." (Jessy Neau, Poitiers)
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You can access the platform from your browser, or download the software
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Session 14 (Thursday, 13.03.2025) : "Researching Popular Literature and Culture Pop Lit 2: Publishing Ecosystems" (Jessy Neau, Poitiers)
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Session 15 (Monday, 17.03.2025): "Researching Popular Literature and Culture Pop Lit 3: Cultural Studies" (Jessy Neau, Poitiers)
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Session 16 (Thursday, 20.03.2025): "Researching Popular Literature and Culture Pop Lit 4 : Fan Academia" (Jessy Neau, Poitiers)
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Session 17 (Monday, 24.03.2025): "Digital Humanities Module DH1: Communities of practice in Digital Humanities" (Manuel Portela, Coimbra)"
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Video Conference Access information:
https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/98350787971?pwd=mz6t7CjAIGeX0dCB9ZGkBAVmkhX9IT.1
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Over the last two decades, a growing body of books, journals and articles have used the phrase “Digital Humanities” in their titles or as a descriptive keyword (Schreibman et al. 2004; McCarty 2005; Siemens and Schreibman 2008; Fiormonte et al. 2010; Berry 2012; Burdick et al. 2012; Gold 2012; Warwick et al. 2012; Terras et al. 2013; Gold and Klein 2016; Schreibman et al. 2016; Simanowski 2016; Fiormonte 2018; Flanders and Jannidis 2019; Dobson 2019; Eve 2022; Portela 2022). The emergence of this notion is symptomatic of the awareness of the transversality of the changes underway, which are no longer contained within the boundaries of specific humanities disciplines and can now be represented as an open field of methodological intersections. This transformation involves the reconceptualization not only of methods internal to each disciplinary area (linguistics, literary studies, philology, history, archaeology or information science, for example), but also of the boundaries between disciplines. One of the possibilities for narrating the emergence of this field of intersections would be through a retrospective understanding of the ways in which digitization has affected the various humanities disciplines since the 1950s and the conditions that led to a transdisciplinary reconfiguration of these processes at the end of the 20th century.In this session, we will (1) look briefly at the history of Digital Humanities, (2) offer a working definition, and (3) focus on selected projects that enable us to understand the field as a series of distinct communities of practice. As a follow-up assignment students will be asked to select one project from those listed in the website of the European Association for Digital Humanities (EADH - Projects: https://eadh.org/projects) and prepare a 5-minute oral presentation of the selected project for the following session. Presentations should address the three dimensions of the digitization of the humanities (1. digitization of cultural artifacts; 2. digitization of humanistic methods of analysis; 3. digitization of the rhetoric of communication) and how each of them can be identified in the selected project.
Recommended reading
Martin Paul Eve, "Introduction", The Digital Humanities and Literary Studies. Oxford University Press, 2022. pp. 1-27 [PDF available below].
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Martin Paul Eve, "Introduction", The Digital Humanities and Literary Studies. Oxford University Press, 2022. pp. 1-27
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This file contains the slides for DH Module - Session 1 .
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Video Conference Access information:
https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/98350787971?pwd=mz6t7CjAIGeX0dCB9ZGkBAVmkhX9IT.1
----------------------------------The identification of communities of practice, in diverse cultural spaces, is another way of describing the field – not through theoretical or programmatic definitions, but through the emergence of topics and problems, on the one hand, and methods to address those topics and problems, on the other. This type of description focuses on the history of specific projects, for instance, projects to digitize, transcribe and annotate literary corpora. This includes pioneering projects such as the Women Writers Project (1988–), Rossetti Archive (1993–2008), The William Blake Archive (1996–), The Walt Whitman Archive (1995–), DEA2 - Dickinson Electronic Archives(1995-2000; 2012–) or HyperNietzsche (1999–), with almost three decades of development and multiple technological migrations; or, during the last ten years or so, Samuel Beckett Digital Manuscript Project(2011–), Virtual St. Paul's Cathedral Project (2012–), The Shelley-Godwin Archive (2013–), Letters 1916-1923 (2015–) or LdoD Archive ( 2017–). We can observe, in each of them, different ways of intersection between the digital philology models adopted and the interaction and usability components as they have been conceived and designed on their respective platforms. We can clearly see a transition between a model focused on representational problems, which corresponds to the migration of print and manuscript texts to the digital medium, characteristic of older projects, and a model that explores the simulation, interactive and collaborative capabilities of the digital medium, which features more prominently in more recent projects, some of which work with digital-born materials.
In this session, we will (1) discuss the DH projects selected and presented by students and (2) discuss the notion of project-based scholarship in DH. As a follow-up assignment students will be asked to organize into groups, and each group will prepare a presentation of one section from the following chapter for our next session.
Recommended reading
Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner and Jeffrey Schnapp. "A Short Guide to the Digital Humanities", Digital_Humanities, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2012. pp. 121-135. [PDF available below]
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Anne Burdick, Johanna Drucker, Peter Lunenfeld, Todd Presner and Jeffrey Schnapp. "A Short Guide to the Digital Humanities", Digital_Humanities, Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 2012. pp. 121-135.
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Video Conference Access information:
https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/98350787971?pwd=mz6t7CjAIGeX0dCB9ZGkBAVmkhX9IT.1
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This session will be entirely focused on discussing the sections from Burdick et al. (2012):
- Digital Humanities Fundamentals
- The Project as Basic Unit
- Institutions and Pragmatics
- How to Evaluate Digital Scholarship
- Project-based Scholarship
- Core Competencies In Processes and Methods
- Learning Outcomes for the Digital Humanities
- Creating Advocacy
As a follow-up assignment students will be asked (1) to find DH projects that work with visualizations and (2) to analyze those visualizations in terms of their techniques (a) for generating quantitative data and (b) for translating metrics into graphics.
Recommended reading
Lev Manovich, "What is visualisation?", Visual Studies, 2011, 26:1, 36-49. https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2011.548488 [PDF available below]
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Lev Manovich, "What is visualisation?", Visual Studies, 26:1 (2011): 36-49. https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2011.548488
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This file contains the slides for DH Module - Session 3 .
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Session 20 (Thursday, 03.04.2025): "DH4: Cultural significance of humanities work" (Manuel Portela, Coimbra)"
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Video Conference Access information:
https://videoconf-colibri.zoom.us/j/98350787971?pwd=mz6t7CjAIGeX0dCB9ZGkBAVmkhX9IT.1
--------------------------------The digitization of the humanities requires a double epistemological awareness: the awareness that the humanities must participate, with their own epistemology, in the invention of the digital medium; and the awareness that participation in this invention changes its objects, methods and textual genres. The key issues for digital humanities are: (1) the ability to digitally model the objects we work with; (2) the ability to imagine sophisticated analyses of artifacts and practices in the digital environment; (3) the ability to translate this modeling and analysis into interactive textual genres, whose simulation capabilities provide new research, teaching, and creative practices.
This implies (a) the development of digital methods to model and analyze digital and non-digital practices and materialities, by developing tools that express specific practices of humanistic inquiry; (b) the study of current social, cultural and artistic practices that depend on digital materiality (“digital culture” as an object of study); (c) promoting the expressive use of digital media for scientific, literary and artistic production in all its forms (the “digital medium” as a creative material environment); (d) the development of a critical digital literacy that develops individual awareness of historical and political aspects of the information society (“digital data” as a set of discursive and social forms).
In this session, students will present the visualizations they have selected. The rhetoric of digital visualization will be discussed in terms of the models of knowledge they embody and also in the light of the cultural significance of humanities work.
Recommended reading
Johanna Drucker, "Information visualization", The Digital Humanities Coursebook: An Introduction to Digital Methods for Research and Scholarship. New York: Routledge, 2021. pp. 86-109. [PDF available below]
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Johanna Drucker, "Information visualization", The Digital Humanities Coursebook: An Introduction to Digital Methods for Research and Scholarship. New York: Routledge, 2021. pp. 86-109.
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This file contains the slides for DH Module - Session 4 .
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Session 22 (Thursday, 10.04.2025): "Introduction to Learner Language Analysis: Developmental Sequences in German as a Second Language" (Christine Czinglar, Jena)
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As a preparation for the talk please read Czinglar (2017), which is a short, open access article, that introduces one of the case studies and methodology.Website of Christine Czinglar
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Session 23 (Monday, 14.04.2025): "Motion verbs in the languages of Europe: focusing on COME" (Ruprecht von Waldenfels, Jena)
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Dear All, please each write a short comment (a small paragraph) on your impression of Lewandowski 2014. Too difficult? Not interesting? Completely fascinating? What did you learn? Please use ChatGPT and the internet at large to make sense of the text. What did you not know, what did you have trouble understanding, what can you add?
We will start next week's session with a discussion of that text.
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Session 24 (Thursday, 17.04.2025): "Transformative pedagogies, creative writing, and antiracist reading groups of minority literatures" (Kaiju Harinen, Turku)
Zoom
Join Zoom Meeting
https://utu.zoom.us/j/66630365600
Meeting ID: 666 3036 5600
Passcode: 596356-
Transformative pedagogies, creative writing, and antiracist reading groups of minority literatures
This lecture introduces a methodological framework for antiracist reading groups grounded in intersectional critical reading. The session focuses on the implementation of transformative pedagogies and creative writing practices within the context of minority literatures, and demonstrates how these approaches function as pedagogical tools for facilitating critical awareness-building among participants.
The session outlines three interrelated and praxis-oriented steps toward developing an intersectional mode of reading. These steps aim to illustrate the complex and overlapping structures of intersectional oppression represented in minority literary texts and to identify strategies that encourage critical engagement and resistance to various forms of discrimination.
In this session, we will (1) examine the theoretical foundations of transformative pedagogies connected to creative writing, intersectionality, and anti-racism; and (2) analyze reading groups as both a pedagogical tool and empirical method that can be used in qualitative data collection from participants. As a follow-up assignment, students will be asked to read a short story by Zadie Smith (2019, pp. 77–101), which we will discuss in small groups during the next session.
Recommended reading
Harinen, Kaiju (2024). Vers un instrument pédagogique intersectionnel et transformatif : les cercles de lecture antiracistes en classe de FLS. Arborescences, (14), 37–54. https://doi.org/10.7202/1113548ar
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Session 25 (Thursday, 24.04.2025): "Intersectional and thematic analysis of reading diaries and creative writing exercises" (Kaiju Harinen, Turku)
Zoom
Join Zoom Meeting
https://utu.zoom.us/j/66630365600
Meeting ID: 666 3036 5600
Passcode: 596356-
This session consists of a reading group discussion based on Zadie Smith’s (2019) short story, which students will have read in advance. The discussion analyzes the text through an intersectional lens and is grounded in transformative pedagogical approaches and antiracism. Small group discussions will be followed by a creative writing exercise inspired by the story, which participants are welcome to share with others if they choose.
The session also focuses on the intersectional and thematic analysis of the data collected for the study discussed in the previous session (April 17). It presents the main findings and critically examines the strengths and limitations of this type of qualitative research.
In this session, we will (1) put into practice transformative pedagogies related to creative writing, intersectionality, and antiracism through literary discussion and a literature-based creative writing exercise; and (2) discuss the results of the qualitative study conducted with participants of the INTERACT antiracist reading groups research project.
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Session 26 (Monday, 28.04.2025): "Explorations of Time in Modernist Literature and the Arts" (Dana-Janeta Baduleascu, Iaşi)
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This lecture introduces the students to the intricacies and complexities of the explorations of time, which is allegedly the most prominent theme of modernism. I start from the premise that in any age of human culture, literature, the arts and sciences are deeply interconnected, and come together to create the Zeitgeist of the age. The itinerary of this journey into the modernist explorations of time starts from a definition and frame of modernism. It continues with the response given by Henri Bergson to Einstein’s ideas in a lecture to the Société Française de Philosophie in Paris, on the 6th of April 1922, which sheds light on the contradictory and dualistic nature of modernism. The significant distinction between clock time versus personal time leads me to an argument of Bergson’s impact upon the literature written by Proust, Woolf, Joyce and Huxley, and to yet another significant aspect of modernism, flânerie and the flâneur, in a discussion of the connection between walking, thinking and remembering. These aspects allow me to tackle the modernist experiments with time in literature and in painting, with a particular focus on the one-day novel written by Woolf and Joyce, and the technique of parallel contrapuntal plots in Huxley’s novel.
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