Yesterday was the first meeting of my summer class, David Emblidge’s travel literature. We went over the syllabus, ate cookies, and took a field trip to the Common to check out one of the Civil War monuments. During our class discussion, David made sure to emphasize that we should be framing the class in terms of our personal goals and opinions – in other words, why we are interested in taking the class. Some of my classmates are interested in travel writing to money; others want to make travel a bigger part of their lives and be able to record their experiences with some clarity. I think the angle that fascinates me the most is perception. I have a somewhat mixed cultural background: I’m Indian but I’ve never been to India, I’m Canadian but I’ve lived in Texas since I was eight. It seems like everywhere I’ve been, something makes me feel like I don’t quite fit in completely. So I’ve always approached travel with the idea that through visiting a place I’ve never been, I can define where I came from and what that means in a different context.
This kind of thing bleeds through to writing, too. I’ve taken a few multicultural lit classes, and the curriculum normally seems to cover authors whose culture becomes the lynchpin of the work, whether it’s the setting or the culture clash or the dialect. I guess I’m curious to what degree an author’s background can influence her writing if it isn’t the focus. Would I still be an Indian-American or Canadian-American author if I’m writing about my experiences at a public high school in Texas? Would knowing certain biographical details about me alter the way people read what I write? And would that be a good thing or a bad thing? I’m not sure how to answer these questions at the moment, but I’m hoping David’s class will help me figure some of them out. And if anyone is around the Ansin building on Tuesday and Thursday nights, I’ll see you there.
Tags: emerson courses · Tanya · writing1 Comment
Your question on the effects of biographical knowledge can be answered both “yes” and “no,” depending on how you approach it. There are those who will argue that an author is present in a work, and consequently not only is what an author “intends” to say paramount, but the context that may or may not inform the author’s intent–personal, social, whatever–is an ancillary part of any analysis. The counterargument, however, removes the author from consideration except as a conduit, so the context that produced the author is more important than what the author meant to say or even the author as an entity apart from context. (Some would go so far as to say that the latter two items ought not be considered whatsoever.)
I think the truth’s somewhere between the two. In your case, the dislocation in your history (or whatever you want to call it) presents you with a unique opportunity to speak as someone who is part of many places, many ghosts of heritage.