Teacher
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CORSO SIMONA
(syllabus)
Island narratives and the rhetoric of nostalgia
In this course we will explore the island trope in a selection of texts, from R.L. Stevenson’s Treasure Island to Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place. In these narratives, the island features at times as a place of adventure, at other times as a theatre where humanity is tested, as a projection of psychotic fantasies, as an artificial paradise, or as a place of violence and squalor. In its latest, astonishing metamorphosis, the island has become a gigantic, floating garbage patch. In this way, islands continue to inspire the imagination of both writers and readers.
(reference books)
Primary Texts: Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883) William Golding, The Lord of the Flies (1954) V. S. Naipaul, The Middle Passage (1962) Doris Lessing, Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971) Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (1988)
Films to be announced.
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