Reading & Composition

“It is one of life’s greatest ironies that, no matter how much we want to be different, wherever we go, there we are. There’s just no getting away from ourselves”

-Ed and Deb Shapiro

One of the great promises of travel is the opportunity for self-discovery. We often feel we have to get away in order to become who we truly are. Whether it’s moving away from home for the first time, a backpacking trip through the wilderness, or a vacation on a tropical island, travel promises escape, freedom, adventure, and personal growth. But is this always true? How does the journey of the immigrant or exile fit in? Or that of the explorer or conqueror? What’s the difference between travel and tourism? What do we make of the environmental, economic, and cultural impact of travel? And what do we do with the terrible irony that wherever we go, there we are?

In this course, we’ll explore the theme of travel in literature from the U.S., Latin America, and the Caribbean. We’ll look to how writers and travelers have represented experiences of new and unfamiliar places, and explore the different means and motivation of movement and migration. We’ll be paying special attention to how these writers understand identity in new and unfamiliar contexts. And we’ll also consider how the senses (sight, smell, taste, and touch) help shape experience, identities, and communities.

As we make our way from descriptions of leaving home, to tales of adventure, to stories of homecoming, we will try to understand questions of identity, movement, and cultural encounter that have helped shape our imaginaries of self, community, and other. We’ll accomplish this by building a  learning community where we can share ideas and dialogue with one another. We’ll consider aspects of texts that puzzle, bother, or excite us, with the end goal of finding clear and concise ways to articulate, both in discussion and in writing, our interpretations to one another.

Texts:

“Crossing Brooklyn Ferry” and “Mannahatta,” Walt Whitman

“Navidad en el Hudson,” (“Christmas on the Hudson”) “Paisaje de la multitud que vomita,” (“Landscape of the vomiting multitude”) “Paisaje de la multitud que orina” (“Landscape of the urinating multitude”), from Poeta en Nueva York, Federico García Lorca

Don Quixote (Part 1, Book 1, Chapters I-VIII)

The Tempest, William Shakespeare

“La carta de Colón,” Christopher Columbus (letter describing his first voyage to the Americas)

A Small Place, and Lucy, Jamaica Kincaid

“Coney Island,” José Martí

“Sóngoro cosongo” Nicolás Guillén

“I, too” and “The Weary Blues,” and translations of Nicolás Guillen from Cuba Libre, Langston Hughes

Notebook of a Return to the Native Land, Aimé Césaire

Home to Harlem, Claude McKay