Short Paper: Prompts, Outlines, Peer Comments

You are strongly encouraged to come up with your own topic.   In case you’re stuck, here are some prompts:

— Hunger seems to be not just a physiological phenomenon for Hemingway and Truong, but a psychological compulsion, made especially acute by the context of Paris.  What do these authors have in common, and where do they diverge?

— In “A Question of Identity,” James Baldwin writes: “From the point of Europe he [the African-American] discovers his own country.   And this is a discovery which not only brings to an end the alienation of the American from himself, but which also makes clear to him, for the first time, the extent of his involvement in the life of Europe.”  To what extent is this statement also true of Hemingway, Stein, and Truong?

— In the hands of Baldwin and Truong, North Africa and Vietnam become significant geographical coordinates for Americans in Paris.  Why are these locations in play?   How do they complicate our understanding of American literature?

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