Refugees & Migrants: Globally Engaged Learning in French

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

This course involves the close study of novels, films, and essays that examine the evolving realities of refugees and migrants in the French-speaking world today. It explores what it means for so many individuals to leave their homeland behind and seek asylum in France, and it focuses on the stories of these global movements and their implications for identities, whether the protagonists wind up in Paris — or in another location, such as South Bend, Indiana. This is the first course of its kind to incorporate engagement with Francophone families who live near Notre Dame and who lack knowledge of the English language and American customs. Once every two weeks, students will meet with local refugees who speak French and need assistance with learning English as well as with a number of other aspects of life in the United States. Tutoring and providing information, as well as assisting in practical tasks like filling out forms will make up some of the activities that students participate in with refugees, but another crucial component of these interactions will entail becoming familiar with their stories and putting them to paper in creative form, in French. Listening to and valorizing the personal narratives of people from Francophone Africa will be an important aspect of the time spent with them, and hearing these oral accounts may give new resonance to the French-language books and films on our syllabus that constitute creative contemporary renditions of migration.