Bilingual Loyalties

Catalog description

Controversies over phrases like "mother tongue," "national language," and "native speaker" reflect the deep investments people bring to issues of language. How might literature become a privileged site for these explorations? In other words, how does the literary engage with the language(s) in which it is written or read? And how do one's poetics aver or betray one's allegiances - racial, cultural, national, and familial? In this course, we will read texts that help us theorize how language vouchsafes one's entry into certain social formations and ideological inclinations. We will also explore how language becomes a unique way to connect literary formations for whom linguistic medium has long been paramount: postcolonial studies, global anglophone literature, ethnic studies, and comparative literature. This course aims to give students a space to experiment with vocabulary for discussing the kinds of strategies and theoretical implications of multilingualism, translation, and race/ethnicity discourse in various literary fields.