Throughout the past few months, this course felt like an endless seesaw ride, bouncing against different – yet similar – themes and cultures. In the beginning of the course, I questioned what “Romance Studies” was, or rather, what it could have meant. However, right from the introductory lecture, I realized I won’t be able to find a single answer to this. I therefore avoided trying to find the meaning behind Romance Studies. This allowed me to approach the texts with an open, unprejudiced mind; rather than seeking for a “hidden” theme, thus creating a filter between the book and myself, I allowed the book to speak to me in its most authentic form, in its most natural language, without any of my own thought filtration. Of course, getting rid of this “tendency to find specific meaning” took time to develop. I remember reading Proust and Aragon and feeling a bit lost as I couldn’t find anything that could answer what “Romance Studies” was. However, simultaneously, the lecture videos were of tremendous help. It guided me through the relevant themes of the story, allowing me to establish an understanding of key concepts without having to systematically “look” for them.

Looking back at the texts that we have read, the strongest commonality I personally found between all the books was the theme of “relationship”. First, there was the relationship between people. From the parent-child relationships shown in The Shrouded Woman, Agostino, Bonjour Tristesse, The Time of the Doves, The Society of Reluctant Dreamers, Amulet, etc., to the temporal relationship between one’s past, present, and future, as shown in “Combray”, Paris Peasant, W, or the Memory of Childhood, everything in our texts started off and ended with relationships. Reading about these different relationships – between people, nations, time, objects, literature – was in itself a truly remarkable experience. One big part that stood out for me was the relationship between narrators and literature – such as the mother’s bedtime stories in “Combray”, the narrator Cercas’ journey to write Soldiers of Salamis, and Auxilio’s obsession with poetry. The relationship between people and literature seemed to have a parallel with the relationship between people and time. Like how time can affect people, in that people can reconstruct the present with a recollection of the past, literature, too, seems to reconstruct people’s futures; in some instances, literature seemed like the key driver of people’s lives (especially for Cercas).

Requiring myself to read a book every week was the best thing I have done in this semester. Not only did I become a faster and better reader, but I was also able to experience a “new world” ever week, every time I opened a new text.

Finally, I would like to express my greatest gratitude towards Professor Beasley-Murray, Patricio, and Jennifer for everything they have done for this class this past semester.

My final question: Out of the numerous themes we have encountered, what stood out to you’re the most? Is it applicable to your life in some way?