This compulsory module for the pathway MA Modern and Contemporary explores modernist and contemporary writing in relation to broad ideas about twentieth-century and twenty-first century history, the historical present, the problems of periodization, and the changing cultural context of literary writing. Special attention is devoted to questions of technology, innovation and social change that alter and bring into question the category of writing itself, its role in theoretical debates, its place in modern and contemporary philosophy. The module has a strand that explores technological innovation and its social effect in the twentieth century, and digital cultures in the twenty first century. There is also a broad engagement with social theory and philosophy, and the, the module aims to offer a detailed survey of issues that relate to the definition of modernism, the nature of modernity and the notion of the contemporary, both in academic contexts and in lived social experience.