Literatures of Immigration

Catalog description

Why do people migrate? How do literary genres, including poetry, fiction, autobiography and memoir, characterize immigrant experiences? How is the experience of "coming from somewhere else" similar and different for each subsequent generation of immigrants? How does literature indicate the impacts of migration on the culture, politics and economics of the countries of immigration and emigration? How do literatures of immigration imagine the past, present and future of networks and communities of immigrants? Focusing on twentieth-century literary texts and the socio-historical context of mass migration, the first half of the course examines immigration literature in the U.S., the second half of the course explores literatures of immigration beyond the U.S., and the course concludes with an inquiry into immigration in our presently globalizing age.