Details
INSTRUCTOR: Asher Milbauer
SECTION: U24
SCHEDULE: Wednesday, 2:00 PM -4:45 PM
Course Description
“I’m very attracted to exile literature – particularly Nabokov – exactly because the idea of being away from home for any serious length of time is so inconceivable to me.”
-Zadie Smith
Through reading fine literary texts by internationally renowned authors, Uva De Aragon, Vladimir Nabokov, Ana Menendez, Elie Wiesel, W.G. Sebald and I.B. Singer among them, Exilic Journeys will give students a nuanced understanding of how the unique status of exile, issues of displacement, complexities of cultural identity formation, the state of in-betweenness (liminality) and alienation shape fundamental human experiences. It explores the roots and causes of a given author’s displacement and examines its historical, social, cultural, psychological, political, and linguistic consequences. In addition to discovering masterful fictional manifestations of the exilic condition, students in this course will have a chance to meet and interact with several exiled writers, critics and artists.
Dr. Milbauer is Professor of English and Founding Director of the Exile Studies Program. He is the author of Transcending Exile and the co-editor (with Dr. James Sutton) of a recently published collection of essays, Exile in Global Literature and Culture: Homes Found and Lost.