ABOUT THE COURSE:The course familiarizes students with the conceptualizations of migration studies, refugee narratives and diasporic literatures. It explores the development and historical trajectories of displacement narratives through the lens of major critical theories. Through the reading of select artworks, it focuses on the causes, consequences and responses to transnational migrations. At the end of the course, students will be equipped with insights crucial for understanding migration in the global context.INTENDED AUDIENCE: Students, scholars, service and non-service backgrounds
Overview
Syllabus
Week 1:Introduction: Theorizing and Historicizing Migration; Defining Refugee; Migrant, Exile, Expatriate; Types and Waves of Migration; Impacts of Migration; Push and pull factors
Week 2:Politics of Space, Understanding the notions of Spatio-temporality in Migration Studies; Refugee and Heterotopia; Immigration and Integration; National and Local belongings, Repatriation and Refugee Agency; Alienation; Affect
Week 3:Case Studies of select literary texts discussing topics such as Refugeehood, Migration, Identity politics, and Body politics; Refugee, Resistance and Survival
Case study- US- Mexico, India-Pakistan, Russia-Ukraine
Week 5:Borderland Discourse in Artworks- Gendered borderlands Refugeehood and Gender in the context of Partition of India; Displacement, Bodily Violence and Trauma; Memorialization and Nostalgia
Authors– Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai, Khushwant Singh, Sunil Ganguly, Bapsi Sidhwa; Amrita Pritam; Joginder Paul; Manoranjan Byapari
Week 6:Diaspora and Transnationalism: Discourses and Trajectories; Major Diaspora Communities & Popular Terms in Diaspora; Romanticization, Exoticization; Double Displacement
Authors – Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Nayantara Sahgal
Week 7:Case Studies – Historicizing Jewish diaspora; Armenian diaspora; Palestinian diaspora; South Asian diaspora (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan) Home and Diaspora Identity
Week 8:Diaspora Discourses in Select Artworks
Authors – Salman Rushdie; Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Gunesekera, Tahnima Anam, Kamila Shamsie, Monica Ali, Rohinton Mistry, Manjushree Thapa, Marina Budhos, Randa Jarrar, William Newbie
Week 9:Kalapani Crossings, Indentured labour and Coolie Diaspora; Double Displacement – Fiji, Trinidad, West Indies, Mauritius, Caribbean
Authors – M.G.Vassanji, V.S. Naipual
Week 10:Diaspora and Cinema - The Namesake, Mistress of Spices, Mamju, Mrs. Chatterjee Versus Norway, Never Have I Ever, Bend It Like Beckham, English Vinglish; select works discussing Bollywood and Diaspora
Week 11:South Asian Indigenous: Santhal tea tribes, Settler Colonies and Tribal Migration; Australian Aboriginals, Canadian and American Indigenous
Authors- Hansda Souvendra Shekhar, Regina Marandi
Week 12:Conclusion- Challenges and Future Scopes of Refugee Studies; Problematics of Diaspora Community Experience
Week 2:Politics of Space, Understanding the notions of Spatio-temporality in Migration Studies; Refugee and Heterotopia; Immigration and Integration; National and Local belongings, Repatriation and Refugee Agency; Alienation; Affect
Week 3:Case Studies of select literary texts discussing topics such as Refugeehood, Migration, Identity politics, and Body politics; Refugee, Resistance and Survival
- Afghan Refugees; Rohingya Refugees; Syrian Refugees; Uganda and the South Sudanese Conflict
- Authors- Khaled Hosseini, Habiburahman, Mumtaz Moosa Saleh; Abdulrazak Gurnah
Case study- US- Mexico, India-Pakistan, Russia-Ukraine
Week 5:Borderland Discourse in Artworks- Gendered borderlands Refugeehood and Gender in the context of Partition of India; Displacement, Bodily Violence and Trauma; Memorialization and Nostalgia
Authors– Saadat Hasan Manto, Ismat Chughtai, Khushwant Singh, Sunil Ganguly, Bapsi Sidhwa; Amrita Pritam; Joginder Paul; Manoranjan Byapari
Week 6:Diaspora and Transnationalism: Discourses and Trajectories; Major Diaspora Communities & Popular Terms in Diaspora; Romanticization, Exoticization; Double Displacement
Authors – Bharati Mukherjee, Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni, Jhumpa Lahiri, Nayantara Sahgal
Week 7:Case Studies – Historicizing Jewish diaspora; Armenian diaspora; Palestinian diaspora; South Asian diaspora (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan) Home and Diaspora Identity
Week 8:Diaspora Discourses in Select Artworks
Authors – Salman Rushdie; Michael Ondaatje, Romesh Gunesekera, Tahnima Anam, Kamila Shamsie, Monica Ali, Rohinton Mistry, Manjushree Thapa, Marina Budhos, Randa Jarrar, William Newbie
Week 9:Kalapani Crossings, Indentured labour and Coolie Diaspora; Double Displacement – Fiji, Trinidad, West Indies, Mauritius, Caribbean
Authors – M.G.Vassanji, V.S. Naipual
Week 10:Diaspora and Cinema - The Namesake, Mistress of Spices, Mamju, Mrs. Chatterjee Versus Norway, Never Have I Ever, Bend It Like Beckham, English Vinglish; select works discussing Bollywood and Diaspora
Week 11:South Asian Indigenous: Santhal tea tribes, Settler Colonies and Tribal Migration; Australian Aboriginals, Canadian and American Indigenous
Authors- Hansda Souvendra Shekhar, Regina Marandi
Week 12:Conclusion- Challenges and Future Scopes of Refugee Studies; Problematics of Diaspora Community Experience
Taught by
Prof. Sarbani Banerjee
