Workshop
Migrations in Literature: Geographies and Genres
Event Summary
Jacob Lawrence, The Migration Series, Panel no. 3: From every southern town migrants left by the hundreds to travel north, 1940–41. © 2024 The Jacob and Gwendolyn Knight Lawrence Foundation, Seattle / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.
The second workshop in a series exploring relationships between literature and human migration considers two sets of questions: How do literary texts interact with the dynamic physical and conceptual spaces within which migrations happen: oceanic spaces that connect people and make worlds; political spaces that collect, confine, and displace populations; and territories and boundaries both real and imagined? How have literary genres and forms changed under the pressure of migration? We examine drama, poetry, and narratives from ancient times to the present, in which issues of migration have reshaped literary genres and challenged national and regional literary traditions.
This event is organized by the Migrations in Literature project at the Neubauer Collegium. Pre-circulated papers are available upon request. To receive them, please contact Associate Director of Communications Mark Sorkin at msorkin@uchicago.edu.