Moving Stories: Experiences of Displacement and Storytelling

7.110205

Dozenten

Beschreibung

Narratives attempting to represent experiences of forced movement, particularly those of travelers sans-papiers, are supposed to perform many, often somewhat contradictory, functions. Depending on the institutional contexts, they purport to act as proofs of identification, records of lives lived, and testimonies to the experiences of flight, but simultaneously, as the voices of the silenced, lending visibility to those who might have languished in the shadows. In this seminar in American Studies, we will contextualize and examine some of these functions and processes underlying the narrativization of the experiences of displacement.
This seminar will take up a challenging selection of theoretical, analytical, fictional and nonfictional texts that demand careful preparation and thoughtful discussion. Please note that this seminar is recommended for advanced master’s students since it builds upon their awareness and understanding of the advanced concepts and theories in literary and cultural studies.
As part of your assigned work in this seminar, all the course participants would need to carefully prepare the reading(s) allotted for each of the sessions, develop points of discussion, and occasionally respond to the reading(s) via annotations on Google Docs.
Apart from other mandatory readings, we will take up the following texts as primary readings:
Nguyen, Viet Thanh, editor. _The Displaced: Refugee Writers on Refugee Lives_. Abrams Press, 2019. (ISBN: 978-1419735110; available for purchase on amazon, among other sellers.)
Mayers, Steven, and Jonathan Freedman, editors. _Solito, Solita: Crossing Borders with Youth Refugees from Central America_. Haymarket Books, 2019. (ISBN: 9781608466184; available for purchase at https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1298-solito-solita)
Please procure copies of these books and start reading them.
Please note that these texts depict varied forms of violence. Do not hesitate to approach me, if you believe any of these aspects would cause you distress. We will try and find ways to address such issues.

Studienbereiche

• Interdisziplinäre Studiengänge > Literatur und Kultur in Europa > Modul 1: Literatur- und Kulturwissenschaft in Europa: Theorien, Modelle, Konzepte
• Interdisziplinäre Studiengänge > Literatur und Kultur in Europa > Modul 2: Nationale Literatur und Kultur A
• Interdisziplinäre Studiengänge > Literatur und Kultur in Europa > Modul 6: Spezialisierung und Professionalisierung
• Anglistik; Englisch > Kulturwissenschaft > Master
• Language and Literary Studies
• Anglistik; Englisch > Literaturwissenschaft > Master