London’s Literature of Immigration

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

As the center of British Empire, the history of London is often framed in terms of export of goods, ideas, and technological innovations. But, perhaps the most important thing moving through London is people, and they are often moving in—from immigrants seeking opportunity, to refugees fleeing violence, to Africans kidnapped and sold as slaves at London docks. Among them, inevitably, writers arrived to live in the city. London had an indelible impact on their work and, in turn, the literature they produced left its mark on London culture by informing the world’s imagination of the city. In this class, we will examine novels, plays, films, and poetry by immigrant or first-generation writers in London as a means of understanding the city in terms of both its global and local character. We will read works ranging from Irish writers born before Irish independence, to contemporary authors born in London to immigrant parents from the Caribbean or Africa. By examining these works, we will engage the very question of what it means to be a Londoner and what we characterize as British writing. We will consider the ways that legacies of colonization, imperialism, and enslavement persist in the lives of Londoners, as well as the way international communities converge in London, making the space for new literary production. In doing so, this class positions London as an originating site of violence, but also as a site of potential. Students will develop a vocabulary for discussing literature, engaging with a variety of forms and traditions. The course aims to help students’ understand concepts like colonization or transnational community by fostering a reciprocal relationship between literary representations of key concepts in class readings and lived observation of those same concepts in students’ experiences in London.