Looking for an Identity, Culture and Society Thematic Specialization Course for fall? C/O English 210. Themes in Literature: Contemporary Immigration Literature
Course Description:
“Exile is strangely compelling to think about but terrible to experience. It is the unhealable rift forced between a human being and a native place, between the self and its true home: its essential sadness can never be surmounted. And while it is true that literature and history contain heroic, romantic, glorious, even triumphant episodes in an exile’s life, these are no more than efforts meant to overcome the crippling sorrow of estrangement.” This quote by Edward Said perfectly summarizes some of the main themes, including exile, alienation, immigration, immigrant experience, ethnic and racial identity, difference and otherness, assimilation, and nostalgia, this course will examine. Immigration is foundational to our understanding of American identity and social formations. Anti-immigrant discourses that we are currently exposed to are not unique - if we closely examine the history of this country, specifically regarding immigration policies, we will be able to notice some patterns that keep emerging. It is the task of humanities to help students look for those patterns, to inspire them to explore similarities and differences between them, and to see what conclusions they might reach. The discourses about immigrants created by the media today have a powerful impact on how these people are perceived and treated. This is why it is of utmost importance to hear their voices that are oftentimes silenced but that provide a different perspective on certain aspects of their lives, one that is usually left out and ignored by the mainstream media. Throughout the semester, we will explore a wide range of contemporary authors writing about immigrants and their experiences of arriving and living in the United States. We will consider various genres, including the novel, short story, poetry, and memoir. Why do people decide to leave their homes and start their lives anew, in the United States? This is just one of the questions we are going to try to find the answer to by reading the books assigned. For some people, it is an economic decision; for others, a reflection of their politics. For an increasing number of displaced persons, the reasons are safety, either from war and violence or from environmental dangers. The goal of this course is to demonstrate that the experience of immigration is not uniform for all immigrants, which will be achieved by including works from different ethnic groups and authors coming from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America.