Course Description

Happy families are all alike. Unhappy families are unhappy all in different ways. Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

Tolstoy’s famous opening of Anna Karenina relies on an implied and shared definition of the family. But what is the family? How do we define it and how do we think about it? Even though in recent years this term has shown a certain fluidity and a potential for embracing monoparental, same-sex and recomposed families, along the traditional mother-father-children scenario, the family as a heteronormative structure still holds fast in our imaginary. And yet, across the centuries literature has helped re-think and reshape imaginatively and ideologically the family, both as a concept and as a social structure, helping society become more open to change. In this class we’ll explore literary texts playing and negotiating the idea of family in fiction. syllabus.