The Language of Novellas: Power, Intimacy, and Personhood

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course centers on twentieth- and twenty-first-century novellas from around the world that explore personhood beyond the limits of nationalist, gendered, and sexual norms. Attuned to questions of bodily autonomy and political sovereignty, these works use the compressed, intimate scale of the novella to stage encounters between private experience and public power. Many of these works reach us through translation, inviting us to consider how language itself mediates sovereignty and belonging. Through close reading, we will examine how narrative voice, structure, and perspective produce alternative visions of subjectivity and futurity. To situate each text historically and culturally, we will engage visual art, film, and criticism, grounding our discussions in interdisciplinary approaches to identity and nationhood. Authors include Etel Adnan (Sitt Marie Rose), Nawal El Saadawi (Woman at Point Zero), Adania Shibli (Minor Detail), Maggie Nelson (The Argonauts), Annie Ernaux (A Girl’s Story), Claire Keegan (Small Things Like These), Clarice Lispector (The Passion According to G.H.), Theresa Hak Kyung Cha (Dictee), and Toni Morrison (Sula). We will also view films by Chantal Akerman, Mohammad Rasoulof, and Agnès Varda, among others.