Dr. Maria-Sabina Draga Alexandru, Assoc. Prof. msdraga@yahoo.co.

uk

Narratives of Diasporic Identity

Core Unit for the American Studies and British Studies MA Programmes Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures University of Bucharest Spring 2013

SEMINAR DESCRIPTION AND REQUIREMENTS:

This seminar will be a text-applied comparative approach to some thematic aspects of identity formation in a set of chosen fictional texts belonging to diasporic literatures in English, at the intersection of various geographical, ethnic and cultural spaces. Rather than aiming at an exhaustive survey of diasporic fictions in English (a next to impossible task, given the amount of such writing that is being produced in the contemporary global age), we shall aim rather at focusing on a number of recurrent topics approached through comparing texts produced in the global English space. Our main intention will be to point out various ways in which the textuality of written fictional texts reflect on issues related to migration, nomadism and diasporic identity from a variety of theoretical perspectives, but situated mainly in a postcolonial, transnational and global light. Students are encouraged to bring in their own theoretical perspectives, however reference critical and theoretical articles to be used in the approach to texts, as well as handouts with basic material, will be emailed to students and should be read in advance of each session. Students are expected to attend a minimum of 50% percent of the classes (given the seminar status of this MA core unit) and to read ten short stories (or one novel and five short stories) and a minimum of two critical texts from the seminar reading list (to be found on the coursepack CD which everybody is expected to make a copy of), as well as to be familiar with all the handout and reference material emailed to them in advance of each session. Grading will be based on a 1200-1500-word midterm comparative essay based on 2 primary texts and 2 theoretical texts from the seminar reading list (on a comparative topic of the students choice, but different from the seminar headings below), due to be submitted to the above email address by April 20, 2010), and a final written exam with short questions based on the required readings. Class participation is strongly encouraged and will count as a bonus to the final mark.

SEMINAR TOPICS AND PRIMARY TEXTS:

1.Introduction: Defining Diasporas and Diasporic Writing 2.After the Buddhas Suburbia: Recent Diasporic London Zadie Smith, The Embassy of Cambodia, The New Yorker, 2013. Monica Ali, Sundowners, The New Yorker, 2006. Zadie Smith. White Teeth (2000). London: Penguin, 2001. Monica Ali, Brick Lane. London: Doubleday, 2003. 3. Refocusing on the Self: Individual Psychology and Minority Resistance to Politics of Normalisation Hanif Kureishi, from Something to Tell You. London: Faber and Faber, 2008. Hanif Kureishi, Long Ago Yesterday, The New Yorker, 2004. Chang-rae Lee, from Native Speaker. New York: Riverhead, 1995. 4-5.Stories of Belonging/Unbelonging Yiyun Li, A Man Like Him, 2008. Ruth Prawer Jhabvala, The Teacher, 2008 Jhumpa Lahiri, from Interpreter of Maladies; Hari Kunzru, Raj, Bohemian , 2008 6. Fluidity and Indirectness in Global Writing in English Edwige Danticat, Ghosts, The New Yorker, 2008.

Michael Ondaatje, from The English Patient. London: Vinage, 1993 Vikram Seth, from An Equal Music, 1999. 7.Archaeologies of the Self: Fictionalising the Other Salman Rushdie, from Joseph Anton, 2012. Aleksandar Hemon, The Noble Truths of Suffering, 2008; Stairway to Heaven, 2006. 8.New East-European Diasporas: Questioning Return Kapka Kassabova, from Street without a Name Domnica Radulescu, from Train to Trieste 9-10. Gender, Diaspora and Memoir Yiyun Li, A Thousand Years of Good Prayers, 2005; Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, 2008. Ha Jin, The House Behind a Weeping Cherry, 2008. Vesna Goldsworthy, from Chernobyl Strawberries, London: Atlantic, 2005. Lara Vapnyar, from Memoirs of a Muse, 2006; Luda and Milena, 2007 Marina Lewycka, from A Short History of Tractors in Ukrainian, London: Penguin, 2005. 11-12.Globalising the Exotic Other Vikram Chandra, Eternal Don, 1997 Salman Rushdie, The Shelter of the World, 2008. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Headstrong Historian Zadie Smith, Hanwell Senior, 2007 Aravind Adiga, The Elephant, 2009. 13.From Diasporic Identity to Global Nomadism in Romanian and Romanian American Writing Ruxandra Cesereanu and Andrei Codrescu, Forgiven Submarine (bilingual edition, translated from the Romanian by Andrei Codrescu), Boston, MA: Black Widow Press, 2009. 14.Conclusion

SECONDARY READINGS:
Appadurai, Arjun. Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press, 1996. Brah, Avtar. Cartographies of Diaspora. Contesting Identities. London and New York: Routledge, 1996. Braziel, Jana Evans and Anita Mannur (eds.). Theorizing Diaspora. A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell, 2003. Castle, Gregory. Postcolonial Discourses. An Anthology. Oxford: Blackwell, 2001. Cohen, Robin. Global Diasporas: An Introduction, London and New York: Routledge, 2008. Draga, Maria-Sabina. Michael Ondaatje: Obsesia lui Anil si intoarcerea in Sri Lanka. Afterword to Michael Ondaatje, Obsesia lui Anil, Iasi: Polirom, 2002. ---. Identity Performance in Contemporary Non-WASP American Fiction. Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, 2008. Draga Alexandru, Maria-Sabina si Teodora Serban-Oprescu. Cultura romneasca in perspectiva transatlantica. Interviuri. Bucuresti: Editura Universitatii din Bucuresti, 2010. Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic. Modernity and Double Consciousness. London and New York: Verso, 1993. Nasta, Susheila. Home Truths. Fictions of the South Asian Diaspora in Britain. London: Palgrave, 2002. Pratt, Mary Louise. Imperial Eyes. Travel Writing and Transculturation. London and New York: Routledge, 1992.

Said, Edward W. The World, the Text and the Critic. Cambridge, MS: Harvard University Press, 1983. Young, Robert. Colonial Desire. Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race. London and New York: Routledge, 1995.