Making Home: People, Places, and Mediated Pieces of American Dreams

There is an element of gestalt to the place of home. It occupies myriad geographical, historical, ideological, and spiritual spaces. It is exclusively, yet simultaneously a hearth, a neighborhood, a city, a region, a nation, and a sense of belonging, community, purpose, safety, and solace. Notions of home in the United States are also inextricably tied to constructions of community, nation, and the mythos of the American Dream. Within the mythology of this Dream, there is the possibility that with ingenuity, perseverance, and “faith,” anyone can succeed in America.

Prof. Desirée Garcia from the School of Transborder Studies and Bambi Haggins, associate professor of film and media studies in the Department of English, will focus on the literal and imagined sites of home in two interrelated projects.