CMPL 207 - Refugee Odysseys

FC ARHU CD WINT

4 credits
What are the stakes of leaving home? What are the stakes of inviting someone into your home? What is a home, in any case? Drawing on literature, film and critical theory, this course explores the stories of travelers, migrants, and refugees around the Mediterranean Sea, a region long associated with mobility, wandering, and rootlessness. Beginning in the ancient Mediterranean world with Homer’s The Odyssey , we will then move to colonial and post-colonial works by Albert Camus, Hélène Cixous, Nina Bouraoui, Jacques Derrida, Michel Haneke, Ocean Vuong, and Abdelrazak Gurnah, among others. Issues addressed include cosmopolitanism, citizenship, and the contemporary Mediterranean refugee crisis.