Nostalgia, Memory and Hybrid Identity

Catalog description

This course examines diasporic literature in the context of cultural theory, history, psychology, philosophy and popular culture (such as music, film and art) to better understand the associated cultural negotiations. Students explore the way diasporic literature of the last century has significantly transformed the literary, theoretical and cultural landscape of the U.S, and raised a range of complex issues relating to identity, language, border crossings (geographical, linguistic and gender, etc.) hybridity, and acculturation and resistance. Readings range across such genres as memoir, fiction, essay, drama and poetry to consider how issues of identity and tradition are represented and contested by immigrant writers in the context of displacement and diaspora.