[GalaxyHead]

Well, a comm grad class I am taking is a combination of a linguistics course about cultural metaphors, and I've decided to do my term paper on the cultural metaphor of 'the homeland'. Places like Arcadia or Kalevala.

What I need are some other examples of well known homelands in other cultures. Not so much holy lands or afterworlds, but places where people long to 'return to'.

Looking at you Felix.

[GalaxyHead]

Well, I won't be dodging holy lands completely, but the metaphor of Isreal as a holy land and as a homeland differ slightly in meaning. And I will discuss this. Or I may integrate them, who knows, this is just an idea so far! If you can give me an example of how Isreal is used as a metaphor for a homeland, that would be awesome, otherwise I have to research it anyway.

Talbain, the metaphor of the homeland that I will be focusing on is mainly what people feel an attachment to as their 'home', or the place they want to return to. They can be nationalistic as well, such as Russia's 'motherland'. But when people say "I want to return to the motherland", there is all sorts of other meanings attached to this statement rather than just "I want to go back to the country Russia."

I could take the easy route and do afterworlds like Nirvana or Valhala, but I have to be different in everything I do.


Really, any suggestions are welcome.

P.S. I ask this question here mainly because, despite being a video game forum, people come from various cultural backgrounds.

[GalaxyHead]

Thank you!

[GalaxyHead]

[GalaxyHead]

To give more details, this paper is mainly how people use this metaphor of 'the homeland' as a means of making sense of their social reality. So, in the past, in Greece, men would work hard for the ideal of 'returning to Arcadia', which was considered a utopia of peace and is also it's own metaphor of man's oneness with nature. So this real physical place, Arcadia (an actual city), was perceived to be a utopian homeland, and these thoughts shaped how these men and women lived their lives and perceived the rest of the world.

[GalaxyHead]

[GalaxyHead]

Does the hippie movement have a specific place they consider their homeland? I thought they just sucked up anything remotely spiritual from buddhism and hiduism through a cloud of weed.

I dunno, I am now considering doing my paper on the metaphor of the fulfilled life as seen through modern western literature/hollywood. You know, man is born, man leaves home to fight in war, man finds honor through war, man marries his true love, man dies having climbed a mountain, etc.

[GalaxyHead]