Seminar in Historical Analysis (405-0-28)
Topic
Global Migration
Instructors
Lauren K Stokes
847/467-3086
Harris Hall - Room 235
Meeting Info
Harris Hall room 101: Thurs 2:00PM - 4:50PM
Overview of class
Migration is a central theme of global history and a crucial driver of processes of globalization. Societies have developed a wide range of labels to categorize people on the move: the "undocumented migrant," the "guest worker," the "refugee," the "migrant woman," the "people smuggler," the "expatriate."
All these categories are consequential, and all of them have a history. This course investigates those histories across the 19th and 20th centuries, reading classic and new works in global migration studies. We will read selected works to consider the methodologies that historians have used to study the movement of people in the modern world, as well as the political, cultural, and economic implications of those movements.
As we discover how states have repeatedly used migration as a resource and constructed it as a threat, we will also pay careful attention to how historians have tried to use their knowledge in contemporary political debates, reading public history projects and editorials alongside academic articles and monographs.
We will consider questions such as:
• What are the historical processes that explain migration patterns? Are migration and migration restriction intrinsically linked to one another?
• How are scholars globalizing what began as a Eurocentric field, and specifically an Atlantic-centric field? What are productive conversations that can be had between scholars who work on migration in different parts of the world?
• What productive conversations can be had about migration across disciplines? What related social sciences have historians drawn from, and how has historical work on migration contributed to theorization in other social science fields?
Learning Objectives
* Students will learn how to evaluate historical arguments * Students will learn how historians use frameworks developed in other social sciences, and how other social sciences draw on history * Students will analyze conventions of academic writing and practice them in their own writing
Evaluation Method
reading responses; journal evaluation paper; research paper
Class Attributes
Graduate Students Only