127011 KO Critical Readings in Literature (2019S)

Migration – the social process of moving from place to place, nation to nation – is something that unsettles meaning and frustrates established social boundaries. In the year 2019, this idea couldn’t be clearer, as the rise of nationalism in Europe and the U.S. coincides with a growing social panic around “refugee crises,” “migrant invasions”, or “demographic changes” – a panic sparked largely by alarmist news media and fear-mongering political leaders. At the same time, this particular political moment has raised debates about the impact of border policies (including asylum programs), national identity, and the historic legacy of globalization - all of which coalesce in a deeper discussion about migration, identity, and place.

In this Critical Readings course, we will examine migration (and, specifically, the political figure of the migrant) through the lens of poetics. ‘Poetics’ in our discussion will operate on two levels: 1.) at the level of poetry and poetic form (obviously), and 2.) as Linda Hutcheon puts it, as “an open, ever-changing theoretical structure by which to order both our cultural knowledge and our critical procedures” (1998: 16). We will examine the ways in which a ‘poetics of migration’ structures - but also destabilizes and re-constitutes - our cultural knowledge and critical procedures in analyzing migration as such, including the dominant modes of political and social representation (e.g. discourse). Throughout the semester, we will be in constant dialogue with different literary texts and poems produced throughout the 20th and 21st Centuries. Furthermore, we will examine various critical/theoretical concepts that arise in this discussion, emphasizing the constant exchange between poetics and politics, as well as with migrant identity.

Course outcome:
• Students will be able to identify different critical and theoretical concepts and terms used in analyzing literature and poetry.
• Students will be able recognize literary qualities associated with migrant literature and migrant poetics.
• Students will be able to understand how ‘poetics’, ‘critique’, and ‘theory’ operate as useful scholarly tools within the field of literary and cultural studies.