• Tue 3:25pm–6:15pm — MAIN B3155

Diaspora is a term that most commonly refers to groups of people who have been displaced and dispersed from a place of origin--for political, social and economic reasons. Diasporic literature thus often articulates and interrogates questions of nationalism, colonialism, empire, home, identity and belonging. This course will examine diaspora as a practice in claiming and challenging historical, translated and imagined identities and places. By focusing on the writings of diasporic authors, this course will explore how textual forms creatively engage with issues of international and intranational migration and write (and rewrite) the histories of local, national, and global communities. Different offerings of this course may focus on work from one or multiple diasporic communities and examine a range of textual forms including fiction, poetry, drama, autobiography, memoir, essays, and speeches, as well as other forms of cultural production such as film, visual art and critical theory.