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Einrichtungen >> Fakultät Geistes- und Kulturwissenschaften >> Institut für Anglistik und Amerikanistik >> Lehrstuhl für Englische Literaturwissenschaft >>
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Exile and Creativity: Identity in Aleksandar Hemon- Dozent/in
- Touhid Chowdhury, M.A.
- Angaben
- Seminar/Proseminar
Rein Online
2 SWS
Studium Generale
Zeit: Di 18:00 - 20:00
- Voraussetzungen / Organisatorisches
- 1. Module Allocation:
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft / freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS
Ergänzungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar max. 6 ECTS
LA Gym: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
BA Berufliche Bildung: Basis/Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
LA GS/HS/MS/RS: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
NOT open for Consolidation Module Literature
open for Ergänzungsmodule Literaturwissenschaft
2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 06.09.2021, 10:00 - 31.10.2021, 23:59
guest auditors: please contact lecturer
- Inhalt
- In one of his seminal essays, “Exile and Creativity,” the Czech born Brazilian philosopher Vilem Flusser view the condition of exile as a challenge to creativity. In his hypothesis, Flusser has argued that “… exile is unliveable. One must transform the information whizzing around into meaningful messages, to make it liveable. One must ‘process’ the data. It is a question of survival: if one fails to transform the data, one is engulfed by the waves of exile. Data transformation is a synonym for creation.” Therefore, according to Flusser, to live up to the life of an exile, one has to be creative; and arguably, a dialogue between the experience of being exiled and finding one’s voice becomes possible. This finding a voice resulted in constructing a new (im-)migrant identity, which in retrospect problematises the foundational understanding of ‘Exile Writers.’ In a foundational sense, an exile writer holds a privileged status as in-betweens, as a mediator between two cultures, thus become an agent of interpretation, who constructs a binary between an alienating “here” and a romanticised “homeland.” However, many of the current writers with an exile background rejected this notion and accepted the status of an (im-)migrant. Writers like Salman Rushdie or Caryl Phillips, for example, have adopted the term “(im-)migrant” to describe their literary production and their personal experience of transculturation. This shift from an exile to (im-)migration does not emphasise a specific point of departure and a point of arrival; instead, it prioritises movement, rootlessness, and mixing cultures, races, and language. It creates a world that does not create a binary inhibition of “here” and “there.” Instead, it celebrates the displacement and its apparent effect on the (im-)migrant’s identity, which alter the self-perception and often result in ambivalence both to the old and new ‘self.’ This new (im-)migrant identity no longer ordinarily or even nostalgically remember the past as a fixed and comforting anchor to life, since its contours move with the present rather than in opposition to it. Therefore, an (im-)migrant’s identity is no longer to do with being but with becoming.
To understand all these matters of being in exile and its relation to creativity and creating a new (im-)migrant identity, non-other than Aleksandar Hemon is the most acutely fitting contemporary writer to read. Aleksandar Hemon is a Bosnian-American writer who teaches creative writing at the University of Princeton currently. Lewis Centre for the Arts at the University of Princeton writes about him: “Born in Sarajevo, Hemon graduated from the University of Sarajevo with a degree in literature and visited Chicago in 1992 as a part of a journalism exchange program, intending to stay for just a few months. However, he could not return home because of the Bosnian War and graduated from Northwestern University with his master’s degree, simultaneously working a series of jobs while continuing to learn English. He wrote his first story in English in 1995.” Since then, Aleksandar Hemon has written seven books: two non-fiction, two short story collections, and three novels. He also has written a few screenplays, and the most recent one is the fourth Matrix movie in cooperation with the British writer David Mitchel. He also edited Best European Fiction between 2010 and 2013.
This seminar will read, analyse, and discuss Aleksandar Hemon’s writing in light of Vilem Flusser’s hypothesis on being an exile and creative and a new (im-)migrant identity. In particular, it will investigate the link between exile and creativity, immigrant experiences and literature, immigrant narrative and nostalgia. The discussion will focus on trans-cultural identities, reception and criticism of migrant identity, the complex experience of immigrant characters living in between two or more languages, societies and cultures.
- Empfohlene Literatur
- Reading List:
The Question of Bruno (2000)
Nowhere Man (2002)
The Lazarus Project (2008)
Love and Obstacles (2009)
The Book of My Lives (2013)
The Making of Zombie Wars (2015)
My Parents: An Introduction (2019)
A more detailed syllabus will be announced in the first session of the class.
- Englischsprachige Informationen:
- Title:
- Exile and Creativity: Identity in Aleksandar Hemon
- Credits: 6
- Prerequisites
- 1. Module Allocation:
BA Anglistik/Amerikanistik:
Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft / freie Erweiterung: Seminar 6 ECTS
Ergänzungsmodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar max. 6 ECTS
LA Gym: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
BA Berufliche Bildung: Basis/Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
LA GS/HS/MS/RS: Aufbaumodul Literaturwissenschaft: Seminar 6 ECTS
NOT open for Consolidation Module Literature
open for Ergänzungsmodule Literaturwissenschaft
2. (De)Registration:
in FlexNow! (except for guest auditors): 06.09.2021, 10:00 - 31.10.2021, 23:59
guest auditors: please contact lecturer
- Contents
- In one of his seminal essays, “Exile and Creativity,” the Czech born Brazilian philosopher Vilem Flusser view the condition of exile as a challenge to creativity. In his hypothesis, Flusser has argued that “… exile is unliveable. One must transform the information whizzing around into meaningful messages, to make it liveable. One must ‘process’ the data. It is a question of survival: if one fails to transform the data, one is engulfed by the waves of exile. Data transformation is a synonym for creation.” Therefore, according to Flusser, to live up to the life of an exile, one has to be creative; and arguably, a dialogue between the experience of being exiled and finding one’s voice becomes possible. This finding a voice resulted in constructing a new (im-)migrant identity, which in retrospect problematises the foundational understanding of ‘Exile Writers.’ In a foundational sense, an exile writer holds a privileged status as in-betweens, as a mediator between two cultures, thus become an agent of interpretation, who constructs a binary between an alienating “here” and a romanticised “homeland.” However, many of the current writers with an exile background rejected this notion and accepted the status of an (im-)migrant. Writers like Salman Rushdie or Caryl Phillips, for example, have adopted the term “(im-)migrant” to describe their literary production and their personal experience of transculturation. This shift from an exile to (im-)migration does not emphasise a specific point of departure and a point of arrival; instead, it prioritises movement, rootlessness, and mixing cultures, races, and language. It creates a world that does not create a binary inhibition of “here” and “there.” Instead, it celebrates the displacement and its apparent effect on the (im-)migrant’s identity, which alter the self-perception and often result in ambivalence both to the old and new ‘self.’ This new (im-)migrant identity no longer ordinarily or even nostalgically remember the past as a fixed and comforting anchor to life, since its contours move with the present rather than in opposition to it. Therefore, an (im-)migrant’s identity is no longer to do with being but with becoming.
To understand all these matters of being in exile and its relation to creativity and creating a new (im-)migrant identity, non-other than Aleksandar Hemon is the most acutely fitting contemporary writer to read. Aleksandar Hemon is a Bosnian-American writer who teaches creative writing at the University of Princeton currently. Lewis Centre for the Arts at the University of Princeton writes about him: “Born in Sarajevo, Hemon graduated from the University of Sarajevo with a degree in literature and visited Chicago in 1992 as a part of a journalism exchange program, intending to stay for just a few months. However, he could not return home because of the Bosnian War and graduated from Northwestern University with his master’s degree, simultaneously working a series of jobs while continuing to learn English. He wrote his first story in English in 1995.” Since then, Aleksandar Hemon has written seven books: two non-fiction, two short story collections, and three novels. He also has written a few screenplays, and the most recent one is the fourth Matrix movie in cooperation with the British writer David Mitchel. He also edited Best European Fiction between 2010 and 2013.
This seminar will read, analyse, and discuss Aleksandar Hemon’s writing in light of Vilem Flusser’s hypothesis on being an exile and creative and a new (im-)migrant identity. In particular, it will investigate the link between exile and creativity, immigrant experiences and literature, immigrant narrative and nostalgia. The discussion will focus on trans-cultural identities, reception and criticism of migrant identity, the complex experience of immigrant characters living in between two or more languages, societies and cultures.
- Literature
- Reading List:
The Question of Bruno (2000)
Nowhere Man (2002)
The Lazarus Project (2008)
Love and Obstacles (2009)
The Book of My Lives (2013)
The Making of Zombie Wars (2015)
My Parents: An Introduction (2019)
A more detailed syllabus will be announced in the first session of the class.
- Zusätzliche Informationen
- Erwartete Teilnehmerzahl: 15
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