Statelessness and Global Media: Citizens, Foreigners, Aliens

Catalog description

What is citizenship? What does it mean to be granted or refused state protection within the global system? To better understand how nation-states govern subjects, we will consider the condition of refugees, displaced persons, illegal residents, undocumented aliens, and stateless persons. We will read the representations of non-citizenship in global media texts (humanitarian graphic narrative, migrant diary, atrocity photography, world cinema, war fiction, crowdsourced crisis mapping). This course will place a special emphasis on how perpetual warfare, territorial re-mappings, and nationality legislation continue to generate sliding scales of non-citizenship. Readings include Arendt, Balibar, Chatterjee, Foucault, Lowe, and Said. Prerequisite: MCM 0110 , 0230 , 0240 , 0250 , 0260 , or 1110 . Enrollment limited to 20.