American Migrations: History, Culture, Literature

Prof. Dr. Christine Gerhardt (American Studies)
Prof. Dr. Sabine Freitag (Modern and Contemporary History)

Course Description

Much of US-American culture has been shaped by histories of migration—both global migrations to the US, and internal migrations within and across the North American continent. The impact of migration on American culture and its narratives can hardly be overestimated. On the one hand, the US has long prided itself to be able to absorb people, languages, and cultures from all over the world; the “American Dream” and the idea that the US was “destined” to spread from Atlantic to Pacific are deeply linked to concepts of migration. On the other hand, the slave trade and Native American “relocations” profoundly contradict idealizing notions of the US as “nation of immigrants.”

We will study formative moments in the history of American migration, from the first arrival of European colonists to major moments of “mass” immigration in the 19th and 20th centuries. Focusing on key phenomena such as the California gold rush and the dust bowl, the African American “Great Migration” to the North and the shift of wealthy whites to the “sunbelt” South, we will discuss how different forms of migratory unrest have shaped American cultures.

At the same time, we will explore which role literature has played in negotiating the meanings of migration in the US. Reading a selection of short stories by different (im)migrant authors, we will ask: how do migration stories shape but also critique dominant ideas of the Melting Pot, the American Dream, or the Frontier? Which roles do family, food, education, or the natural world play in the migratory imagination? How do ethnicity and gender inflect these stories’ perspectives? And which formal and aesthetic features characterize American literature of migration?