Наративи на изгнанието / Narratives of Exile

With the acceleration of global integration, the scope of international migration is so large, that an enormous body of migrant writings has been amassed for the last one hundred years. The course introduces students to Literatures of Mobility through texts on exile, migration and expatriation. They main goal is to examine how encounters between different cultures – between the East and the West as geographical locations and as mental constructs – shape individual identities, and how creative expressions both reflect and reflect on these processes. Literature can function on a par with sociology and anthropology in providing significant insights in exploratory travels, migratory flows, exilic and neo-nomadic experiences. The problems of displacement, uprootedness, cultural allegiance and identity and their reflections in language are examined through the prose of exiled writers: Eva Hoffman, Milan Kundera, Lyubomir Kanov, Radka Yakimov, and contemporary Bulgarian authors, defined as transcultural: Miroslav Penkov, Zahari Karabashliev, Ilija Trojanov, Kapka Kassabova, Nikolai Grozni, Krassi Zourkova and others. The following questions are addressed: How are heterogeneous identities produced in the process of transcultural mobility? How are they represented in imaginary, creative outputs through different genres, styles and language experiments? How does the debate on transculturalism concern the construction of the West versus the East, of Self versus Other, of ‘Europeanness’ and ‘Americanness’?  

Students complete the readings each week for discussion in the virtual classroom and through forums or chat. Each students does a presentation on one of the main course readings, individually or collaboratively. The final exam consists of a written paper on a topic related to the themes addressed in the course. 

Students completing the course should be able to:

1. Discuss various theoretical perspectives in relation to migration, the interaction between cultures, the relation between Self and Other, East and West;

2.  Outline the "poetics" of migrant writings and distinguishing features of the Literatures of Mobility in their different forms. 

Курсът запознава студентите с мигрантското писане и тематиката на изгнанието, миграцията и експатрирането. Проблемите на дислокацията,   носталгията,  двойната идентичност и връзките й с езика, контрапунктното мислене, съвместяването на родната и чужда култури и  ролята на миналото се проследяват в прозата на писатели преминали през изгнанието като Ева Хофман, Милан Кундера, Любомир Канов, Радка Якимов, и съвременни български автори, определяни като транскултурални: Мирослав Пенков, Захари Карабашлиев, Илия Троянов и др. Като се изхожда от избрани  теоретични постановки, свързани с взаимодействието между културите, с отношението свой-чужд, Аз-Друг, с понятията Изток-Запад и др., се обръща специално внимание на характерни литературно-стилистични подходи за предаване на мигрантската тематика с цел да се очертаят типологични белези на мигрантското писане и на транскултуралното мислене в съвременния свят.