Putting the Human Back in Human Rights: Narratives of Migration

Undergraduate / Graduate

Across the world, there is a criminalization of migration. Does the human being become less human when they migrate? Do they lose rights? What are the stories that are being told about them, by others and by themselves, in the US and elsewhere? This course will look at the migrant experience in literature, journalism, poetry, film, and art. We will examine anti-immigrant texts as well as celebrations of migration, to see how storytelling shapes migrant destiny. We will pay close attention to the complexity of the individual immigrant, which is often at variance with broader group classification or ideology.