Course Description:

This course investigates the journeys and stories of refugees today through contemporary fiction and films that reconstruct aspects of a refugee’s flight across land and sea borders into Europe. We will pay particular attention to the forms of personhood that emerge or are put into crisis by experiences such as clandestine passage, detention, surveillance, encampment, deportation or asylum. How is the refugee currently imagined, in relation to, say, the migrant? What are the possibilities and limits of humanitarian approaches to refugees? Of human rights discourses on refugees? How does art serve as a sanctuary, or change the way we think about protecting refugees and representing their rights? These and other questions will be pursued through readings of literature and visual culture (photography, film, video installations).

Prerequisites:

no language prerequisites

Additional Information:

All reading, writing and discussion are in English. This course satisfies 1 "Culture" or 1 "Elective" course requirement in the French major.  This course does not satisfy requirements for the French Minor.