Instructor: Irena Percinkova-Patton

Spring 2016, ENGL 200 E

“The Foreigner IS Home: Narratives of Home and Displacement”

This course focuses on Anglophone literature that is being created by a growing transcultural group of writers who explore the intersections of migration and mobility with identity formation.   In the light of such cultural trends, this course proposes a flexible interpretative framework for examining the treatment of home and the quest for cultural/national belonging by several contemporary writers. We will use as a starting point Toni Morrison’s ideas from her 2006 Louvre lecture, where as a curator of the multidisciplinary program "The Foreigner's Home"—an artistic exploration of the pain as well as the rewards of displacement, immigration and exile-- Morrison examines Géricault's painting "The Raft of the Medusa” as a fitting metaphor for the millions of displaced and exiled people in the world today. Through our discussions we will also take on the question of the immigrant experience as a “condition of terminal loss” (as Said defines it) and consider the possibilities of geographical/transnational mobility as a culturally productive state.

Coursework will involve writing two papers, a midterm and a final exam, along with shorter writing assignments, quizzes and significant class discussion and participation. Required texts: Home (Toni Morrison), Americanah (Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie), Lost in Translation (Eva Hoffman), The Book of My Lives (selections, Aleksandar Hemon), Interpreter of Maladies (selected short stories, Jhumpa Lahiri),as well as a course packet with theoretical essays.  This course statisfies the UW "W" requirement.