NES 6707 - [The Literature and Film of Muslims and Others in Diaspora]

(crosslisted) COML 6724, RELST 6707

Fall. Not offered 2015-2016. 4 credits.

S. Toorawa.

Together we explore how contemporary diasporic Muslim, Latin American, European and Asian writers and filmmakers operate with(in) memory, with the impossible longing to belong, with the loss of ‘home’ (when ‘home’ is where they already are?) We will read and plumb Zulfikar Ghose, Abdulrazak Gurnah, Sorayya Khan, Manzu Islam and Hanif Kureishi; and we will watch ‘My Beautiful Laundrette,’ ‘Surviving Sabu’ and ‘Le Grand voyage’. Participants will be invited to each contribute one primary reading or viewing to the seminar. To sharpen our critical lenses-viz. the diasporic condition, identity, memory, gender and mythology-we will be guided by Ahmed, Erickson, Hawley, Rushdie, and Subramani. Together we will try to understand how the expatriate, the im/migrant, the emigré, writes herself, her world, and her condition. Most material in English.