Sunday, December 02, 2012

Alice Kaplan: Dreaming in French, Part I
























Right now, I'm halfway through the Angela Davis section of Alice Kaplan's marvelous book, Dreaming in French: The Paris Years of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy, Susan Sontag, and Angela Davis (The University of Chicago Press, 2012). The excitement of study abroad is made palpable -- seeing the world anew. Kaplan's comparative study works twice over -- by bringing readers to the experiences of these three iconic people at salient points in their lives before they became well-known, it also invites remembrances of comparable experiences in readers' lives.

For me, such initial conciousness-raising came as a significant personal breakthrough on my first overseas adventure as an undergraduate student. But the ground had already been prepared by family moves when I was a kid, by a large family library often discussed, and by engaging teachers.

Have you experienced a major move, or trip, or work or study program or service far from whence you first came? If so, how did it change or enhance your worldview?

Today's Rune: Journey.
  

2 comments:

Charles Gramlich said...

I grew up without hardly any travel. It wasn't until I took my first job away from Arkansas, in New Orleans, that I got a taste of the wider world, It was broadening for sure.

the walking man said...

I split for the military at 17 then the road at 21. Those years taught me that my world view would, even though solidified would be an evolution until my last breath. I do not need to move now, I only need to understand to change.