WS 19/20 HS Refugee Writings and Stories of Migration

This course examines texts written by and about refugees, asylum seekers, and migrants and will afford students the opportunity to reflect on current discussions in politics and media on refugees, migrants and stateless people. Focusing on the representations of migrant trajectories and refugee experiences in literary texts by transcultural Anglophone writers of different origins (Latinx, Asian, and African) who now reside in the U.S., we will look at the different representational and narrative strategies which are employed in order to situate the constructions of diasporic and transnational identities within global processes of colonization, globalization, capitalism, and nationalism. We will deal with depictions of experiences of migrants and asylum seekers who also cross social, and cultural boundaries of normative gender, and institutions of the state. We will focus on Viet Thanh Nguyen’s The Refugees (2017), Moshin Hamid’s Exit West (2017), and Patricia Engel’s The Veins of the Ocean (2016), and the short stories ”The Asylum Seeker” by Suketu Mehta and ”America” by Chinelo Okparanta.

This course also provides students with a foundational understanding of and critical engagement with key theories, concepts, issues, and debates in critical refugee, diaspora, and transnational studies.