Family: Selected Memories, Imaginations and Narratives

Family is at the core of our memory and imagination. From postcolonial politics, religion to language, how do macro forces impact families and their individual and collective psyches?  How do the trials and tribulations of family life define our imagination? Moving through exile, revolutions, poverty, religious crises, and
spiritual reckonings, families morph, twist and bend, thereby creating an almost surreal landscape. The psychologies and destinies of its members evolve in the most unexpected ways. How do families surprise us? Reading from diverse cultural and linguistic points of view, this course will explore concepts of memory, nostalgia,
home, displacement, love, and belonging. In addition to literary theory and selected films, we intend to expand our understanding of these narratives, as well as our own notions of family, memory and identity.
1. Milan Kundera
'The Joke / Immortality' - 20th c literary fiction - Czech author

2. Chinua Achebe's novel 'Things Fall Apart' - 20th c historical fiction - Nigerian author

3. 'Catfish and Mandala: A Two-Wheel Journey through Vietnam' by Andrew Pham -21st c American literary fiction - Vietnamese-American author

4. 'As I Lay Dying' by William Faulkner -20th century American literary fiction