Understanding Germany through Displacement, Flight, Migration, and Asylum



This course introduces and analyzes experiences of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees in German-speaking Europe. Beginning in the pre-World War II era, the course offers historical and current perspectives on expulsion, persecution, integration, assimilation, acculturation, and multiculturalism represented in major media outlets, audio-visual materials, feature films, and academic scholarship. By taking a chronological position the course traces displacement, flight, migration, and asylum beginning with the persecutions of Jews, the expulsion of ethnic Germans, and the effects of migrant labor movements. In particular, the course offers students starting points for inquiry by focusing on geo-political shifts, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the results of the Balkan Wars, and how these turns continue to shape perceptions of identity in Germany, Austria, and within the European Union. Thus, the course includes a critical treatment of current cultural and political debates in the media surrounding Syrian and African refugees in Germany. This course aims at developing advanced literacy by deepening strategies for summarizing, analyzing, interpreting, and presenting substantial arguments in professional and academic settings. In addition, the course incorporates the development of media literacy by critically engaging with authentic materials and thereby developing concise formulation of informed opinions.



Required texts:

Texts will be available for purchase at the College Bookstore after all placement testing has been completed.