The Idea of Hospitality I: From Ancient Times to the Present

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Do we have a duty to make strangers feel at home? Should we give others welcome even when they seem alien and threatening? And how does it feel to be homeless, cast out-refused hospitality? These questions have a long history, from ancient Egypt and the Hebrew Bible to debates about immigration in our own time. The first half of the course, ENGL 2705 , which can be taken as a separate 2-credit course, will track this idea from ancient times to the modern period, bringing together literary and religious texts and visual art; the second half, ENGL 2706 , also offered as a 2-credit unit, will focus on treatments of hospitality in fiction, film, and other media in our own time, including Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place, Mohsin Hamid's The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and Stephen Frear's film, Dirty Pretty Things.