A Nation of Immigrants? Theories, Discourses, and Representations of Immigration 4219-RS285
Selected issues to be discussed:
- Theorizing immigration: multiculturality, hybridity, diaspora, postethnicity, transnationality, etc.
- Voluntary vs. forced migration
- Language loss and gain
- Immigration and race/ethnicity
- Immigration and gender/sexuality
- Changing discourses on Asian Americans: from yellow peril through enemy aliens to model minority and beyond
- Immigration & the war on terror
- Theorizing the border
- Immigration restrictions, unauthorized immigration and the question of citizenship
Type of course
elective courses
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
Upon completion of the course, a student:
Knowledge:
- knows the major theories and terminology employed to the analysis of immigration in texts of culture;
- is familiar with the major trajectories of immigration to the US as well as with the specificity of cultural representations of immigration.
Skills:
- can take part in discussions of representations of immigration in texts of culture;
- is able to offer a detailed analysis of a text of culture in speech and writing with the use of terminology proper for the studied body of texts;
- is able to carry out a research project into representations of immigration in texts of culture.
Competences:
- is aware of the racial and ethnic diversity of the US;
- is sensitive to the role of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, social class and other elements of identity for the functioning of individuals and groups within a larger society.
Assessment criteria
Course requirements:
- Active participation in the seminar – 20%
- Presentation of the final project – 20%
- Annotated bibliography – 20%
- Final research paper – 40%
Skala oceniania / Grading scale:
0-59% - 2
60-69% - 3.0
70-74% - 3.5
75-84% - 4.0
85-89% - 4.5
90-97% - 5
98-100% - 5!
Bibliography
Aciman, Andre, ed. Letters of Transit: Reflections on Exile, Identity, Language, and Loss. The New Press, 1998.
Anzaldúa. Gloria. Borderlands/La Frontera: The New Mestiza. Aunt Lute Books, 1997.
Baker, Brenda J., and Takeyuki Tsuda, eds. Migration and Disruptions: Toward a Unifying Theory of Ancient and Contemporary Migrations. University Press of Florida, 2015.
Braziel, Jana Evans, and Anita Mannur, eds. Theorizing Diaspora: A Reader. Blackwell Publishing, 2003.
Brettel, Caroline B., and James F. Hollifield, eds. Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines. Routledge, 2023.
Cole, David. Enemy Aliens: Double Standards and Constitutional Freedoms in the War on Terrorism. The New Press, 2003.
Cordasco, Francesco. Dictionary of American Immigrant History. The Scarecrow Press, 1990.
Espin, Oliva. Women Crossing Boundaries: A Psychology of Immigration and Transformations of Sexuality. Routledge, 1999.
Friedman, Susan Stanford. Mappings: Feminism and the Cultural Geographies of Encounter. Princeton UP, 1998.
Guibernau, Montserrat, and John Rex, eds. The Ethnicity Reader: Nationalism, Multiculturalism, and Migration. Polity Press, 1997.
Grewal, Inderpal. Transnational America: Feminism, Diasporas, Neoliberalisms. Duke University Press, 2005.
Hodes, Martha, ed. Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History. New York UP, 1999.
Wu, Frank H. Yellow: Race in America Beyond Black and White. Basic Books, 2002.
Bibliography is subject to change.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: