First-Year Research Seminar: Home and Homeland

Semester and Year	SP 2013
Course Number	FIRST-UG741
Section	001
Instructor	Kathryn Vomero Santos
Days	Mon,Wed
Time	9:30 AM - 10:45 AM
Units	4.0
Level	U
Foundation Requirement

Notes/Restrictions

Open to Gallatin first-year students only.

Description

What is home? Where is home? How do we define home? What does it mean to be home? In this course, we explore the concepts of home and homeland as they relate to geographical place, birth, language, and cultural identity. We read texts by and about exiles, émigrés, and expatriates in order to think about the departure from home, the loss of home, and the processes by which people make new homes and maintain relationships to their native lands. Does the ability or inability to return home affect one’s perceptions of home? Is the idea of home an imagined fantasy or is it grounded in concrete places and experiences? We also examine past and contemporary practices of defining homes and homelands in relation to outsiders. How, in other words, are ideas of home and homeland exclusionary? Students write various analytic essays that address these questions and develop individual projects for a longer research essay. The texts for this course may include the writings of Edward Said, Salman Rushdie, and Eva Hoffman, articles about immigration policy and Homeland Security, the PBS documentary Homeland: Immigration in America , and clips from the recent television show Homeland .

Course Type

First-Year Program: Research Seminars (FIRST-UG)