123251 AR Literature Course - 1/2 (MA) British/Irish/New English & Cultural Studies (2024S)

Founded in 2014 by Anna Pincus (Director of the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group) and David Herd (Professor of Poetry, formerly at the University of Kent at Canterbury, recently called to the Berry Chair at the University of St. Andrews), Refugee Tales is an activist project of collective protest (https://www.refugeetales.org/). The UK is the only country in Europe whose immigration laws allow indefinite immigration detention, and Refugee Tales calls for an end to this practice in breach of all definitions of human rights. The project, which attracted considerable celebrity support over the past few years (https://www.28for28.org/), has three main strands visits of volunteers with detained persons, walks in which detained persons, visitors and supporters are welcome to join (including you, if you want…), and tales, currently published in four volumes. These strands interconnect: some visits turn into collaborations with authors and thus to published texts, some tales are read during lunch-breaks and at the end of each walking day; some walks are joined by some of the formerly engaged writers. As a whole, Refugee Tales not only aims to provide immediate help to the currently detained, but also works towards replacing current immigration law that allows for indefinite immigration detention in the UK with one that enshrines a temporally limited form of detention. Beyond the mere change in legislation, the Refugee Tales project also tries to help (re-)grow a culture of welcome that has been thoroughly lost, ever since Theresa May announced in 2012: "The aim is to create here in Britain a really hostile environment for illegal immigration" and The Immigration Act 2016 put this policy into practice. In this AR we are going to study the Refugee Tales project, putting an emphasis on its filmic and written output, located at the intersection of short narrative, life-writing, refugee literature and activist cultural/political practices.

NB!
While this course does not come with a planned excursion per se, you will have an opportunity to supplement it with a field trip by joining the Refugee Tales walk 2024, if you feel so inclined. Here is the latest information I gleaned from David Herd, who is going to join us in class, as a guest speaker, in June: "The walk 2024 is launched on 20 January. We have a physical event following which the tickets go on sale online. The full-week tickets sell out very quickly but single day tickets are available a little longer. The walk runs from 5 to 10 July and goes from Edenbridge in Surrey to Westminster. The accommodation we offer is the shared space of the village halls/churches that we stop at en route, with people sleeping on mats/inflatable mattresses and in sleeping bags. The spaces are divided by gender. This is not for everybody and we encourage people to book into hotels, B&Bs or campsites if that is what they would prefer. We are usually able to give a list of nearby accommodation. As for your students, there is really no reason why they shouldn't come along and we are always really keen for younger people to join the walk. Many students (and student-aged people) have walked before. They just have to know that the project is quite rough and ready, that we walk around 10-12 miles a day, and that the accommodation is quite basic!"
If you are interested: keep an eye out for the launch information and make your arrangements according to your wishes. I might see you there for a couple of days.