Expatriate Fiction: Looking in a Foreign Mirror

The discovery of our own cultural identity is usually prompted by contact with another culture. Paradoxically, this leads us to wonder where "we" begin and our nationality leaves off. In this seminar we will begin by reading stories and novels in which characters are tested by foreign encounters and wind up questioning the very notion of individual identity itself. Texts include Paul Bowles's The Sheltering Sky, E. M. Forster's A Passage to India, Jean Rhys's Wide Sargasso Sea, Graham Greene's The Quiet American, and others. 3 hrs. sem.