Literature of the RefugeeModule Details

Background and Rationale

This module is open to all students with an interest in the current refugee crisis. The focus is on literary narratives by and about asylum seekers and refugees and students should be prepared to read roughly a novel a week. Refugee Narratives affords
students the opportunity to reflect on the current refugee crisis by looking at a wide range of writing by and about refugees, migrants and stateless people. While the module features contemporary narratives about people seeking asylum in the UK (Chikwava, Abani, Clanchy, Gurnah), it also looks at earlier narratives of Jewish and Palestinian displacement (Michaels and Kanafani), contemporary migration to the US (Cole) and one narrative in which the host nation remains deliberately obscure (Coetzee). The module will explore refugee experience and the process of seeking asylum; personal, political and literary practices of hospitality; statelessness, citizenship and the limits of the nation-state; the ends and limits of sympathy and compassion; xenophobia and racism; human rights and global inequities; the difficulty of distinguishing between refugees and other migrants. While our main focus is on novels, we will also look at a variety of other forms of representation, including poetry, short stories, refugee testimony and film.

Learning Outcomes
Completing this course the student will have:
 Broad understanding of how refugees are legally defined in international law
 Broad understanding of the process of seeking asylum in the UK and elsewhere
 In depth understanding of specific refugee narratives: how they are produced, by whom and to what effect.
 Skills for effective communication, oral and written.
 Capacity to analyse and critically examine diverse forms of discourse.
 Ability to acquire quantities of complex information of diverse kinds in a structured and systematic way.
 Capacity for independent thought and judgement.
 Critical reasoning.
 Research skills, including information retrieval skills, the organisation of material, and the evaluation of its importance.
 Time management and organisational skills.