Literatures of Globalization: Forms of Transnational Intimacy

Catalog description

This course introduces students to the concept of globalization through the frame of intimacy and emotions. What kind of new intimacies are born within transnational families that speak multiple languages? What kind of misunderstanding and alienation is produced when words like ?homosexual? do not exist in one language but are crucial to the identity and growth of a multilingual character? When families and communities are affected by tragedies born of capitalism, what can and cannot be talked about, and what is the effect of those silences? When adults are traumatized by poverty, war, colonization, or migration to the point of avoiding talking about their experiences, how do their children understand themselves emotionally and culturally? When traditional family units are unable to provide the necessary support structures to meet a young person?s needs, what do those individuals have to do and understand to find different roots with their chosen kin? We?ll think together about issues of gender, sexuality, identity, food, and emotional connection through the novels and poetry that dramatize the impact of globalized experience.