Fachbereich 7

Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft


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American Literature and Migration


DozentIn: Jatin Wagle

Veranstaltungstyp: Seminar

Ort: 22/E26: Mo. 12:00 - 14:00 (10x), 41/E07: Mo. 12:00 - 14:00 (2x)

Zeiten: Mo. 12:00 - 14:00 (wöchentlich) k.A., Mo. 12:00 - 14:00 (wöchentlich), Ort: 22/E26, 41/E07

Beschreibung: In _The Figure of the Migrant_ (2015), Thomas Nail argues that migration is not the exception to the norm of political fixity and citizenship but is constitutive of the politics of modernity. More than three decades earlier, Salman Rushdie had put forth a similar, if not more sweeping, claim in his essay on Günter Grass: "The migrant, denied [his roots, language and social norms], is obliged to find new ways of describing himself, new ways of being human". This evident, almost undisputed, centrality of the figure of the migrant poses its own questions, especially vis-à-vis modern American literature: if the migrant is exemplary for the modern human condition and if the central issues seen in immigrant literature, such as social estrangement, fraught sense of belonging and fragmentation of selves are also the recurrent or implicit themes of modern literature as such, how do we distinguish the former from the literary mainstream? But, more significantly, how does literature, especially narrative fiction, negotiate and articulate the multilayered experience of immigration in this context?
These and cognate questions will be taken up in this course in American Studies. In particular, we will interrogate some of the theoretical terms used to designate the literature of immigration, such as (new) or (multi)ethnic literatures, or minor(ity) fictions, as well as postcolonial and multicultural literatures.
In order to take and enjoy this class, you should be more than willing to read, analyze, and discuss literary, theoretical, and analytical texts. Please note that this seminar is recommended for advanced master's students, since it builds upon students' awareness and understanding of the advanced concepts and theories in literary and cultural studies.
We will be discussing the following texts of narrative fiction in our course.
• Anzia Yezierska, _Bread Givers_ (1925)
• Edwidge Danticat, _Breath, Eyes, Memory_ (1994)
• Viet Thanh Nguyen, _The Refugees_ (2017)


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