Fleeing Nazism-Making New Homes

In this course we will explore global refugee experiences of people who escaped the Nazi regime. Working with literary texts, scholarly articles, interviews, and films, we will study experiences of intellectuals such as Hannah Arendt, Bertolt Brecht and Carl Zuckmayer, and those of Kindertransport-children brought to Great Britain. Our study also includes people who escaped to Latin American countries like Mexico and Chile or ended up in colonial territories like Kenya or Mauritius. Our foci will be lived experiences of forced migration, home-making strategies, and questions of belonging. Central questions include: What makes a home a home? How did language skills and age shape refugees’ experiences? What was left behind and what baggage – visible or invisible- did refugees carry with them? (This course is part of a collaborative cluster of First Year Seminars focused on home and belonging.)