Fachbereich 7

Sprach- und Literaturwissenschaft


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Undocumented Lives?: Narratives and Archives of Migration


DozentIn: Jatin Wagle

Veranstaltungstyp: Seminar

Ort: 41/E07

Zeiten: Mo. 16:00 - 18:00 (wöchentlich)

Beschreibung: “Sharing my story made me visible…I was finally “documented” and accounted for…,” states an undocumented immigrant in a collection carrying the subtitle, Narratives of Undocumented Lives (2017). Such utterances seem to attribute profound significance to migrant stories and storytelling: narratives, especially those of travelers sans-papiers, are purported to function as records of lives lived, serve as testimonies to experiences of trauma and exile, provide proofs of identification, and furthermore, lend visibility to their protagonists. In this seminar in American Studies, we will interrogate some of these claims regarding the narratives of migration. We will take up a sampling of fictional as well as nonfictional narrative texts, to examine the possibility of reading narratives as archives of migration by addressing questions of narrative composition and capability.
In this seminar, we will take up a challenging selection of theoretical, analytical, fictional and nonfictional texts that demand careful preparation and thoughtful discussion. Please note that this seminar is recommended for advanced master’s students since it builds upon their awareness and understanding of the advanced concepts and theories in literary and cultural studies.
Primary readings:
Hernandez, Tim Z. _All They Will Call You_. University of Arizona Press, 2017. ( ISBN: 9780816537372)
(ebook available via University library at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/osna/detail.action?docID=4737002)
Thompson, Gabriel. _Chasing the Harvest: Migrant Workers in California Agriculture_ Verso, 2017. (ebook available for purchase at: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2394-chasing-the-harvest)
(ebook available via University library at:
https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/osna/detail.action?docID=5177444)
As part of your assigned work in this seminar, all the course participants would need to carefully prepare the reading(s) allotted for a session, develop points of discussion, respond to the reading(s) via annotations on Google Docs. If you have queries or doubts, they should also be raised on the digital, collaborative tools. The due dates for your contributions will be mentioned in the syllabus wiki. Our weekly, in-person meetings will be assisted by expert groups/session presenters.
While posting your comments, remarks and questions on digital, collaborative platforms used in this course, please keep in mind that you are communicating and interacting within an academic context. Therefore, your online contributions are expected to articulate informed and well-grounded views that are germane to the course contents, i.e., considered reflections based on analyses and/or scholarly readings.
We will review our progress, revisit and amend the course schedule, our strategies of classroom interaction as well as the seminar contents on a periodic basis. Readings will be made available in a “Readings” folder via links or as pdfs under the “Files” tab.
This course shares requirements and guidelines with other American Studies courses taught at IfAA. The “American Studies Tool Kit” in the Stud.IP “Files” section outlines these requirements and guidelines. Please see the “Guidelines for Seminar Papers” for information on the formal requirements for the final paper. The “Grading Rubric” is used in the grading and feedback process and will enable you to better judge your own paper even before handing it in. Please check the course webpages on Stud.IP regularly for updates, announcements, and changes.


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