Thursday, February 21, 2008

the namesake

The first novel in my English 278: Multicultural Literature in America class is Jhumpa Lahiri's *The Namesake.* We finished the novel last week, and watched the movie this week. I love hearing my students proclaim the movie second rate to the novel...as a bibliophile, of course I think novels offer a richer textual experience. However, the film adaptation is lovely--Mira Nair creates a world of contrasts, and plays up the transportation scenes to wonderful effect.

Tomorrow my students will entertain and delight the rest of the class with a multi-facted group project, one of the biggest projects in the class. I'm eager to see what they do with the text.

Next week, we begin reading *Like Water for Chocolate.*

My subtheme of the course is food, family and identity--topics both of these novels portray lovingly.

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