Unsettled Refugees

Catalog description

This course introduces students to Critical Refugee Studies, which is a multidisciplinary field that incorporates both the humanities and the social sciences. Critical Refugee Studies subverts the dominant narrative that regards the figure of the refugee as simply an object to be rescued. Instead, Critical Refugee Studies reconfigures the refugee as the paradigm through which a larger set of problems can be made more intelligible. In this class, refugees are understood to be complex historical actors whose movements and actions reveal processes and legacies of imperialism, colonialism, militarism, displacement, and resettlement. The literature, documentaries, and podcasts that we will be reading, watching, and listening to in this course will focus on how particular populations of displaced people negotiated their refugee status to critique and make demands of the various nation-states and international organizations with which they interacted. In addition, this class will be attuned to how refugees, with limited resources, were able to create social networks and cultural productions that enabled them to act and remember collectively. Satisfies History major and minor requirement Satisfies Historical Thought requirement Satisfies Justice, Equality and Community requirement