The Quest for Home: How Will I Know It’s Home If I’ve Never Been There Before?
Location
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
Presentation Type
Presentation
Start Date
19-9-2017 11:00 AM
Description
Although, at its most basic, the word home simply means dwelling, or place of origin, clearly this word carries much more meaning than this, to the point that we can speak of a feeling of being at home whether we are in a familiar dwelling or not. Generally, we think of this feeling as being associated with our experience of a particular place. How, then, is it possible to seek a home if one has never known one, or to make a new home that does not always feel inferior to the concept we have formed in our minds? This theme runs through much literature, but perhaps nowhere more so than in science fiction. In this lecture, I hope to explore the desire for home as something separate from one’s past experience, drawing both on examples from literary works as well as my own personal feelings specific to this word.
Recommended Citation
Monteverde, Maggie, "The Quest for Home: How Will I Know It’s Home If I’ve Never Been There Before?" (2017). Humanities Symposium. 28.
https://repository.belmont.edu/humanities_symposium/2017/2017/28
The Quest for Home: How Will I Know It’s Home If I’ve Never Been There Before?
Janet Ayers Academic Center, JAAC 4094
Although, at its most basic, the word home simply means dwelling, or place of origin, clearly this word carries much more meaning than this, to the point that we can speak of a feeling of being at home whether we are in a familiar dwelling or not. Generally, we think of this feeling as being associated with our experience of a particular place. How, then, is it possible to seek a home if one has never known one, or to make a new home that does not always feel inferior to the concept we have formed in our minds? This theme runs through much literature, but perhaps nowhere more so than in science fiction. In this lecture, I hope to explore the desire for home as something separate from one’s past experience, drawing both on examples from literary works as well as my own personal feelings specific to this word.
Comments
Convocation Credit: Society and the Arts and Sciences