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
Course coordinators
Type of course
elective courses
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.