| Description |
This course investigates the phenomenon of diaspora in modern, postcolonial, and global contexts. Incorporating an interdisciplinary literature from the social sciences and humanities, we will examine a number of key questions:
- What are the economic, political and social forces that instigate and shape human experiences of movement?
- How do migrants move and settle amid plural and heterogeneous social contexts?
- What are the intersections of migration, refugeeism, transnationalism and diaspora with other forms of social difference (religion, ethnicity, race, class, gender, sexuality)?
- How does the experience of diaspora influence the production of literary, artistic, and popular cultural forms?
- How do notions of home, belonging, citizenship, and identity evolve in diasporic contexts?
Students will become familiar with the social features of diaspora and the cultural expression of the diasporic condition through a consideration of theoretical, and literary texts. Particular attention will be given to the local nuances of diaspora in Canada, the UK, and Germany. |
| Literature |
Students wishing to enrol in this course will be expected to have read the following two novels:
- Lawrence Hill, The Book of Negroes (Transworld Publishers, 2010)
- Shani Mootoo, Cereus Blooms at Night (Grove/Atlantic Inc, 2009)
Further texts will be made available online (BSCW server). |
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