123222 SE Literature Seminar / BA Paper / MA British/Irish/New English (2018S)

Home is an auratic term which conjures up a host of associations such as warmth or safety. At the same time, it is notoriously tricky to define because meanings of home are dependent upon social and cultural contexts and individual experientiality. Moreover, home is a multidimensional term as it may refer to a physical structure, e.g. house, a social unit, a place of origins, affective ties or the “site of everyday lived experience” (Avtar Brah). It can also be situated on various scales ranging from the domestic to the global.

In addition, ‘home’ is not a neutral place or a mere descriptive term, as the discussion about the German term ‘Heimat’ has shown in the last few decades. Notions of home are always implicated in ideologies and discursive power relations. Home is therefore a site where subjectivities are forged, practiced and negotiated.

Literature arguably plays an active role in establishing, disseminating and questioning cultural ideas and ideals of home. In the seminar, we will discuss how home is represented in British and Anglophone novels and short stories and how these texts and their textual strategies assess, perform, and re-define home. Here, we will also think about how the novels make us re-think the connection between self, home, and homeland.

Due to the interdisciplinary discussion on home and homeland, the seminar will cover theoretical work from areas like sociology, ethnography, media and cultural studies. As part of the seminar, we will host international specialists who will present their own research and who will work with the seminar group on concrete examples.

Please note: In tandem with the seminar, there is also the lecture series “(Be)Coming Home” (Tuesdays, 6-8 pm) which is recommended to participants as an ideal complement and extension of the seminar discussion.