International Center University of Florida

With global migration on the rise, societies, governments, and individuals are experiencing both the benefits and the issues of a mobile population. This multidisciplinary course investigates the concepts of diaspora and transnationalism (both theoretically and in a hands-on manner), as well as exploring the relationship between identity and home in narrative contexts. We will ask the following questions to explore how these experiences provide people from different cultures and countries with a sense of self: What does the concept of where we come from really mean? How does leaving home influence our sense of self? How and why do we find a new home and community? Is this the same for people from different cultures and countries? Ultimately, we will examine how our individual understanding of our position in the world we inhabit has been reflected in and is shaped by ideas of place, space, history, language, music, and art, and the extent to which that is bound to our home culture. Through primary and secondary texts, including films, podcasts, poems, art, music, and personal experience interviews, this course will examine how human beings from different cultures construct identities, and the impact that identifying home, leaving home, finding a new community, and returning “home” have on that process.