MODL 381: Cultures in Transit, "Savage Sorting" -- Migration Stories
Dr. Patricia Anne Simpson
TR 11:00-12:15
With 250,000 people living outside their country of birth, human migration has compelled a range of responses, often articulated as heightened nationalism committed to enforcing the borders of the nation-state; or as a multicultural globalism that advances a notion of human rights independent of a particular citizenship. In her work on migration, economies, and spatial transformations, sociologist Saskia Sassen uses the phrase “savage sorting” to define the processes that divide the world into winners and losers. In this course, we will take a plural approach to migration from a cultural perspective that includes the arts and narrative. In examining a selection of readings, films, and works of art, we will acquire the tools to challenge assumptions about identity, citizenship, and community; and to enhance an understanding of politically charged issues, such as illegal immigration, refugee “crises,” environmental degradation and displacement, and shifting concepts and practices of human rights and humanitarianism. Select authors include Emine Sevgi Özdamar, Yoko Tawada, Jenny Erpenbeck, Zafer Senocak, Chika Unigwe, José F.A. Oliver, among others. Professor Simpson has also invited refugees living in Lincoln to share their migration stories.