The National Imagination: Our Core Course
"The National Imagination," the Department’s core course required of our majors, is also popular with many students from other disciplines. It gives a good idea of our approaches to fundamental questions of language and national cultures. To get an extensive description of this course, and to read interviews with faculty and students, please click here.
The National Imagination course is taught each spring semester, with a team of three professors focusing on the "imagined communities" that we call national cultures. So far, seven of our full-time faculty have taught the course, and we will bring in one or two more every year.
Our underlying premise is that national languages and cultures promote the identity of particular communities. We are interested in examining those subjective expressions of culture--images, symbols, narratives--that lead people to feel that they are members of the communities we call nations.
Students are trained to examine the nature of the national imagination as a seminal idea that has shaped modern cultures. They explore a variety of cultural texts and contexts, such as architecture, painting, news analysis, film, and literature, that may be said to embody the national.
We regularly hold symposia with speakers and/or assigned readings in order to maintain a dialogue within the department on issues of national identity, crossing borders, emigration, and cultural differences with both abstract and practical applications.