During Fall 2019 and Spring 2020, the library invited small groups of undergraduate students to curate scholarly book displays around a particular theme in connection with a particular course or program. Books chosen for a display that the library didn't own were ordered by the library. Displays remained up for one month and included student photos and bios, as well as information about the course that the students were taking. The library hopes such displays will generate more student interest in our collection while also promoting the wide range of interesting courses offered at SJU.
Immigration, exile, migrancy, refugee crisis – it seems that there are so many words to designate what is about to become one of the most fundamental and basic of 21st -century human experiences. We hear the word globalization on a daily basis, yet, at the same time, we are increasingly more aware that the world is very far from becoming borderless. While it might seem that immigrants, exiles, refugees and migrants are an issue of “them” rather than “us” (i.e. something that does not concern us directly), in this class we strive to appreciate the universality of this condition. As the writer Mohsin Hamid has said, “We are all migrants through time.”
During this semester, we will attempt to disentangle some of these complex issues through our class discussions, research, presentations and essays. Focusing mainly on postwar Britain and Ireland and the changing immigration policies of these countries, we will study how economic conditions as well as historical and political events such as 9/11 and/or Brexit have influenced nationalism, gender, race and language at the end of the 20th and the start of 21st century.
Kersti Powell, D.Phil.
Assistant Professor
Department of English