Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI). Summer 2. 2021
Course Title: “Introduction to Critical Theory”
Duration: Six Weeks
Course: Summer 2 of 2021
Dates: June 11-July 16, 2021
Time: Fridays 3:00pm-4:45pm
Course Description:
The contemporary world has seen more changes in status of citizenship, nationality, legal personhood, and migration than ever before. It is, therefore, important that we discuss how these changes impact our lives and the lives of others with whom we share this world. This course will center around arguments of citizenship, migration, and incarceration. We will read different accounts of experience, theory, and law surrounding these themes in order first to have a better and more holistic understanding of the issues of our present day and second to deconstruct the arguments and evidence each of the readings put forward so that we can understand how to make compelling arguments of our own. No previous knowledge is required for enjoyment of this course.
Suggested purchases (in order of importance); Please note #2 is a PDF linked to another website and #3 and #4 are PDFs linked to this website, so purchase only necessary if student wishes to have physical copies:
- The Penguin Book of Migration Literature (2019) ed. by Dohra Ahmad
- Regarding the Pain of Others (2003) by Susan Sontag
- Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines – 3rd Edition (2014) ed. by Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield
- The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies (2014) ed by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long, and Nando Sigona
Schedule (readings are meant to be done before the class during which they will be discussed)
June 11 – Migration Studies: Discipline and Literature
Slides: Click Here
Reading:
- Introduction from Migration Theory: Talking Across Disciplines (3rd Edition) by Caroline B. Brettell and James F. Hollifield
- Introduction from The Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies by Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Gil Loescher, Katy Long, and Nando Sigona
- “Birth of a ‘Discipline’: From Refugee to Forced Migration Studies” by B.S. Chimni in the Journal of Refugee Studies vol. 22, no. 1 (2009)
June 18 – The Migrant Crises in America before 1950
Slides: Click Here
Reading:
- “An Immigrant’s Tale: The Mexican American Southwest 1850 to 1950” by Brian Gratton and Emily Klancher Merchant
- “Citizenship and Belonging/Inclusion and Exclusion” and “The State, The City, and Multiculturalism” by Caroline B. Brettell
- “The Creation of a Geoculture: Ideologies, Social Movements, Social Science” by Immanuel Wallerstein
- Omar F. Miranda’s 5-page review of Migration and Modernities: The State of Being Stateless, 1750–1850 (ed. JoEllen DeLucia and Juliet Shields)
- Watch Chapter 1 of The Chinese Exclusion Act from American Experience (PBS)
- Watch Ep. 1 of Asian Americans (PBS), “Breaking Ground”
- Watch “Concentration Camps Are Older Than World War II” on YouTube (PBS)
- Watch “U.S. Immigration | Let’s Talk | NPR” on YouTube (NPR)
June 25– The Migrant Crises in America since 1950
Slides: Click Here
Reading:
- “Defining Diaspora, Refining a Discourse” by Kim D. Butler
- “Human Rights and Forced Migration” by Jane McAdam (Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies)
- “Forced Migrants as ‘Illegal’ Migrants” by Stephan Scheel and Vicki Squire (Oxford Handbook of Refugee and Forced Migration Studies)
- “Capturing Capitalism’s Work: Competing Photo-Narratives of the Bracero Program” by Erica Toffoli
- “Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man” by Hannah Arendt
July 2 – Policing the Crises: Militarization of Borders, Incarceration of Migrants, and the Wealth Behind It All
Reading:
- “A Legacy of Injustice: The U.S. Criminalization of Migration” – 2020 Report from National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC)
- “Surrogates and Subcontractors: Flexibility and Obscurity in U.S. Immigrant Detention” by David M. Hernández
- “The Thickening Borderlands: Bastard Mestiz@s, ‘Illegal’ Possibilities, and Globalizing Migrant Life” by Gilberto Rosas
- Introduction to Governing Immigration Through Crime: A Reader (eds. Julie A. Dowling and Jonathan Xavier Inda)
- Introduction to Forever Prisons: How the United States Made the World’s Largest Immigrant Detention System by Elliott Young
July 9 – Migration Literature, Part 1
*No slides this week/ Class was discussion*
Reading:
The Penguin Book of Migration Literature, pp. 3-40, 51-67, 105-106
- Olaudah Equiano, from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
- M. Norbeße Philip, “Zong! #5”
- Julie Otsuka, “Come, Japanese!”
- Francisco Jiménez, “Under the Wire”
- Edwidge Danticat, “Children of the Sea”
- Phillis Wheatley, “On Being Brought from Africa to America”
- Claude McKay, “The Tropics of New York”
July 16 – Migration Literature, Part 2
Slides: Click Here
Reading:
The Penguin Book of Migration Literature, pp. 90-101, 147-152, 229-239, 161-167
- Salman Rushdie, “Good Advice is Rarer Than Rubies”
- Warsan Shire, “Conversations About Home (at the Deportation Centre)”
- Dunya Mikhail, “Another Planet”
- Marjane Satrapi, from Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return
- Zadie Smith, from White Teeth
- Tato Laviera, “AmeRícan”
- Deepak Unnikrishnan, from Temporary People
Preston Taylor Stone 