123226 SE Literature Seminar / BA-Paper / MA American/North American Lit./Studies (2018S)

This seminar aims at exploring literary renditions of refugee experiences related to North America as a destination in various genres (novel, young adult fiction, short story, poetry). We will look at representations of this experience since the mid-20th century: in the context WW2, at the so-called "boat people" in the Vietnam and Cambodian War, and the flight from dictatorships in Cuba and Haiti. We will explore these literary works through the lens of different theoretical texts and concepts, from Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari ("smooth/striated space") and Judith Butler ("precarious lives," "frames of war") to Achille Mbembe ("necropolitics"), from trauma studies to social theory (cf. Zygmunt Bauman, Strangers at Our Door). One guiding question will be the question of representation and its aesthetics itself: how can the trauma of persecution and flight be put into language and literary discourse at all?

Methods: lecture parts, discussions, pair work, group work