Literature and Belonging

5 credits · Undergraduate

A sense of belonging is a fundamental human need, yet it is also very hard to acquire. This course uses literature, film, and other media to show how people have imagined themselves to be located in the world and which forces have helped, or hindered those efforts. How does national origin, race, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexuality, ecology, and, increasingly, technology, play into our desire to belong? How have people imagined new relations with others, how have families and a sense of what a family is changed, evolved? How can we belong to a nation, a planet, a universe?