Global Scholars Seminar

By introducing students to undergraduate research, providing them with opportunities to learn more about study and research abroad, and helping them think about ways they might integrate international into their post-graduate lives, the seminar serves as the foundation for the Global Scholars program.

Citizens, Refugees, Humans

Marike Janzen, Associate Professor, Department of Slavic, German, and Eurasian Studies
Time/Place: 5:00-7:30 pm on Tuesdays ♦ 102 Nunemaker 

According to the UNHCR (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees), the number of forcibly displaced people across the world currently numbers 89.3 million. The transition from lawful resident of a particular nation to refugee is a traumatic one, not least due to refugees’ loss of access to rights that are guaranteed to citizens of states. Depending on location, these include rights to safe housing, healthcare, education, and due process under the law. Refugees and citizens are human beings, but citizens are able to exercise their human-ness in ways that refugees cannot.

In this course, we will explore the diverging experiences of citizenship and refugee-dom, and examine how each shapes our understanding of what it means to be human. Our study will focus on cultural and political texts responding to crises in which the category of the refugee was codified in international law. These include the post-World War I period, World War II and its aftermath, and the steady increase of displaced persons in the past ten years due to (the often-interrelated phenomena) of war and climate change.