Course Details

This seminar course will invite students to think carefully about the experience of migration to America from Africa and other regions. The course will not offer a history of immigration – a topic better examined in other History Department courses – but instead use films, novels, and memoirs to reflect on the experiences of immigrants and the stories told by and about them. As part of the course, students will also develop skills to tell their own immigration stories in written, visual, audio or musical formats. These narratives can be autobiographical or they can tell the stories of family members or other people (living or dead) who had remarkable immigration histories. 

This course is linked to a creative residence at UW’s Meany Hall for the Performing Arts by the musician Meklit Hadero (meklitmusic.com), who will attend some sessions of the class to help students craft their voices as storytellers.