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)
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island (1883) David Herbert Lawrence, The Man who Loved Islands (1928) William Golding, Lord of the Flies (1954) V. S. Naipaul, The Middle Passage (1962) Doris Lessing, Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971) (extra reading for those who will not attend the course) Jamaica Kincaid, A Small Place (1988) Marianne Wiggins, John Dollar (1999)
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