ENG 2700 A Diaspora and Literature
Since circa 3rd century BCE, the notion of diaspora has been invoked to call attention to displacement, deterritorialization, migration, exile, and dispersal (both voluntary and forced) of communities from original homelands to new spaces of beginning. The eventful twentieth century made such transnational movements more frequent, dynamic, complex, and volatile. Using academic, literary, and cultural texts, this course examines the multivalent ethnic, national, class, political, cultural, and economic valences of Asian diasporas in the West. Situating the dialogue at the intersection of colonial and postcolonial geopolitics, the course asks: How does diaspora question and compliment the nation on the one hand and forces of globalization on the other? How do original homelands continue to haunt diasporic subjects? Taking a Janus-headed approach, how do diasporic writers and artists seek to reconnect with ancestral homelands they cannot reclaim and return? How do they question, navigate, and claim hybrid and multiple identities, belongings, and new ways of becoming? The course wrestles with these questions by concentrating on diasporic literary mappings of India, Pakistan, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, Vietnam, and Cambodia.
Course Types
Expression; Literature
Offered
Fall 2022