In this course we will consider the ways in which works of fiction converse with and respond to one another. To this end, we will divide our readings into distinct units, each beginning with a canonical work of early twentieth century Modernism, like Joseph Conrad’s novel The Secret Agent or Virginia Woolf’s Mrs Dalloway. Then we will proceed to examine how this modernist work’s narrative, characters, formal techniques, and/or themes have been transposed in more recent iterations. We’ll observe contrasts and connections across these works, and consider how Modernist narratives and formal strategies continue to reverberate in postmodern, postcolonial, and other contemporary fictions.