Course
ENCW 499 Directed Study: The Empire Writes Back
Document Type
Student Paper
Publication Date
Spring 2021
Disciplines
Creative Writing | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Nonfiction | Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies | South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies
Description, Abstract, or Artist's Statement
This essay was written in response to Sri Lankan-American writer and activist Leah Lakshmi Piepzna Samarasinha's poetry collection Love Cake, as part of a directed study I undertook in Spring 2021. A goal of the directed study, titled "The Empire Writes Back" was to engage with and build upon work by writers from South Asia and the diaspora, of which Piepzna-Samarasinha is a vocal member. In this essay, I explore not only the sense of connection I feel with this poet and her body of work as a result of shared experiences of otherness, trauma, and nationhood, but also my attempts to understand the differences of upbringing, ethnicity and circumstance that distinguish us, and how they have affected us as creatives.
Augustana Digital Commons Citation
Ranaraja, Lalini Shanela. "Treatise, Scripture, Manifesto: Reckoning With "Love Cake"" (2021). Audre Lorde Writing Prize.
https://digitalcommons.augustana.edu/wollstonecraftaward/43
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Included in
Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Nonfiction Commons, Race, Ethnicity and Post-Colonial Studies Commons, South and Southeast Asian Languages and Societies Commons
Comments
2nd Place Winner, Personal/Reflective Prose, 2021