Leaving one’s home and culture for a fresh start in a new place can be a simultaneously exhilarating and painful process. In this course, we will explore the multiple ways in which authors have imagined such migrations (and even experienced those migrations firsthand). We will discuss the range of sentiments and emotional experiences that accompany these journeys, from loss, loneliness, fear, and shame to liberation, awakening, and rejuvenation. And we will look at ideas that emerge across the texts—for example, the significance of “the quest”; the importance of family, friends, and strangers in our journeys; the multiple definitions of “home”; the impact of war on the human psyche; and much more. Reading and writing about a variety of works will lead us to consider both the joys and the anxieties that each of us has experienced upon leaving the places and the people we call “home.”