CiD-Essay One for Cultures in Dialogue, RC Hums 334, Sec. 3. W '09
Please submit a 3-4 page typed essay (double spaced, 1 inch margins) on the following topic by Fri., Feb. 6 at noon (submit online as a Word.doc).

• DIASPORAS / MIGRATIONS

In his text, H.M. Enzensberger states that “every migration, irrespective of its cause, nature and scale, leads to conflicts.” Explore the notion of diaspora and its multiple ramifications as a two-fold exercise:

1. Submit as your first page 5-7 substantial quotations from any of the texts you have read and films you have seen for class. (Quotes from films MUST be exact, not paraphrases.) These quotations should underscore ideas that have been particularly illuminating, insightful or simply new to you on the concepts of diasporas and/or transnational movements. The order of these quotations can be random and you should not comment on them here.

2. Essay. Taking into consideration texts you have read to date for this class, films we have viewed, and plays (and excerpts from plays) we have "workshopped", please write a reflection paper about diaspora that addresses one or more of the notions listed below. Feel free to explore what the term 'diaspora' means to you personally, and whether you perceive it as a positive or negative concept (for yourself and/or in our society, in academia, etc.). Could conflict be perceived as something 'positive'?:

• diaspora's connotations of past trauma and hope;
• its literal / physical / geographic movement and dispersion across national boundaries as well as other metaphorical meanings (such as departure from pre-assigned locations in class, gender, etc.);
• how diaspora relates to community and collective memory, the myth of origin and return;
• diaspora as it relates to space, location and settlement; how diasporic communities retain their identities and negotiate space with a majority population;
• borders and/or borderlands; hybridity;
• how 'home' and 'identity' are defined by diasporic communities/ individuals

N.B. These suggestions were drawn primarily from Brah, Clifford and Levy but you are welcome to respond to other texts (e.g., Enzensberger, Appiah) in your paper. The texts echo and complement each other and I encourage you to choose your references, bearing this in mind.