This page provides lists courses related to refugees taught at Berkeley.
Bodies in Motion: Theories, Concepts and Issues in Critical Refugee, Diaspora, and Transnational Studies - "With prevailing conflicts, increased globalization and impact on communities, poor governance, and other adverse conditions in the world system, millions of people are on the move, dislocated and displaced by war, failing economies, environmental destruction, and the desire for betterment. Exit from the homeland, anticipated or unanticipated, however does not necessarily ensure successful resettlement. Many of the world’s forced migrants languish in temporary camps, are repeatedly displaced, or repatriated back to their homelands. Further challenging the assumed linearity of the migration process are migrant efforts and desire to maintain their presence in, and connections to multiple places. These transnational ties present both opportunities and challenges for immigrant communities. This course provides students with a foundational understanding of and critical engagement with key theories, concepts, issues, and debates in critical refugee, diaspora, and transnational studies. Framed by migration and post-resettlement experiences of communities in the US, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America, it interrogates fundamental questions salient to global migration such as the causes and effects of displacement, state policies and migrant responses, impetuses for transnational ties, and diasporic longing, remembering, and 'return.'"
Citizenship and Identity in France - "What does it mean to be a citizen? One quick answer is to say that a citizen is a person who is is recognized as belonging to a State, as having rights and protections, as being a member of a political and social order. But even this quick definition raises more questions than it answers. In our age of globalization, of refugee crises, of Brexit, of HB1 visas, and of border walls, how do we decide if someone “belongs”? Questions about citizenship and immigration are not only questions about rights, they are also, inevitably, questions about national identity. Who “we” are is shaped by our beliefs about and actions toward those whose status is precarious, liminal, or, seemingly, non-existent.
"In this course we will study French idea about citizenship and belonging, about participation and protection, from the early modern period through the present. France sees itself as the birthplace of human rights and as a refuge for those fleeing persecution. But these beliefs have been tested throughout French history by internal tensions and external crises.
"We will study the ways in which France today tries to reconcile its often opposing cultural and political imperatives. We will study fiction, philosophy, and politics from the eighteenth century through the twenty-first. We will study ideas about cosmopolitanism and universalism. We will study some crucial historical moments: the Dreyfus affair, the refugee influx of the 1930s, and the Algerian war. We will study the most recent examples in which France faces challenges as it seeks to integrate new identities, new practices, new modes of belonging within French citizenship. We will pay attention to the politics of recent elections, the prolonged state of emergency, the “burkini,” and more. We will think about the ways in which France experiences the tensions and transformations of our times differently from the ways the United States does."
Diasporic Imaginaries: Narrating War, Exile and Longing by and in the Southeast Asian Diaspora - "This course situates Southeast Asian diaspora theoretically and conceptually within the larger discourse of critical refugee studies, diaspora and transnational studies. It interrogates the particular contexts- namely the impact of war, genocide, and exile- that inform Southeast Asian mass dispersal and diasporic community formation, remembrance, and longing. Drawing on history, narratives, archives, and literary and artistic expressions of Southeast Asian diasporas, the course animates discourses of the relationships between memory, place, home, and belonging. Memories of the ancestral homeland thread through diasporic imaginaries, geopolitically across Asia and Asian America, and temporally between past and present and across generations. While the course focuses on the United States where the largest Southeast Asian communities are located, it will also draw upon the experiences and scholarly, literary and artistic expressions of other communities of the Southeast Asian diaspora."
Global Environmental Politics - "Political factors affecting ecological conditions in the Third World. Topics include environmental degradation, migrations, agricultural production, role of international aid, divergence in standard of living, political power, participation and decision making, access to resources, global environmental policies and treaties, political strife and war."
Global Refugees - "Research seminar focus is on critical theories and practices in transnational comparative frameworks." Ethnic Studies 240-001. Khatharya Um.
Immigrants and Refugees in the U.S - "Overview of immigration policy in the U.S. from an international and historical perspective. Theories of migration, transnationalism, and adaptation will be addressed, along with skills required for working with refugees and immigrants facing difficulties. Addresses the impact of policy on who comes to the U.S. and the circumstances newcomers and their families face once here." Social Welfare 274-001, open to graduate students in Social Welfare only. Julian Chow.
Immigration and the Question of Islam in France - "This course is designed as an introduction to the history of North African immigration in France in the twentieth- and twenty-first centuries. We will first focus on the main historical events that rendered the massive North African immigration possible and sometimes unavoidable. We will also pay close attention to the various political and ideological discourses that consider immigration through the particular viewpoint of Islam and the threat it poses to national identity. We will discuss sociological, political and literary texts, such as Mémoires d’immigrés, by Yamina Benguigui, Soumission, by Michel Houellebeq and La Double absence by Abdelmalek Saayed."
Immigration: What do the data tell us? - "This course will cover the small but important part of the rich history human migration that deals with the population of the United States--focusing on the 20th and 21st Centuries. We will use the tools of DS8 to answer specific questions that relate to the themes of this course: (1) Why do people migrate? (2) Is immigration good or bad for receiving (and sending) countries? (3) How do immigrants adapt and how do societies change in response? In addition to scientific questions, this course will also address the demographic and political history of immigration in the US -- an understanding of which is crucial for understanding both the broad contours of US history and the particular situation in which we find ourselves today."
International Human Rights - "This course will explore the philosophical evolution of human rights principles in the realm of political theory and the influence of such principles as they have transformed into a coherent body of law. We will focus specifically on issues in international human rights law; the approach will be both thematic and comparative. Topics will include but are not limited to: human rights diplomacy; the influence of human rights in international legal practice; cultural and minority rights; genocide and the world community; cultural relativism and national sovereignty; international law and international relations; individual and collective rights; migration, labor, and globalization; and national, international, and nongovernmental organizations."
Introduction to Reel Arabs - "This course explores various issues in Arab cinema in the last 50 years. The course is organized around key themes such as desire under authoritarian rule, presence and absence in the colony, revolution though the looking glass, diasporic approaches to space, taboo memories, the borders of utopia/dystopia, the debt of a refugee, sci-fi and the limits of representation, fantasy and authenticity. Within a comparative framework, the course will consider these issues through a variety of filmic and theoretic texts including essays, critical articles, documentaries, fiction films, shorts and more. Films include: The Dupes, A Flood in Baath Country, The Time That Remains."
Middle Class Radicalization Across the Globe: The Re-birth of Populism in the United States, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe - "This course will focus on the wave of radicalism that has been sweeping the globe since the late 2000s. The precursor to this global wave was the rise of populist movements and regimes in Latin America in the 1990s. After the 2008 financial crisis, revolutions and protests erupted in quite dissimilar geographies: the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street in the US, the failed Arab revolutions, horizantalist revolts in Southern Europe, ISIS in the Muslim world, and right-wing radicalization in Venezuela and Ukraine. These movements also triggered each other. Tahrir inspired Occupy. The post-Arab Spring refugee wave (and fear of Islamism) fed into further right-wing radicalization in France, Poland, Germany, and Hungary. Repeating the Latin American experience, some of these populist movements might lead to populist regimes (or at least populist political options), as the rise of Trump, Corbyn, the daughter Le Pen, Syriza, Podemos, and Sanders suggests. Since it has been frequently stated that downwardly mobile middle-class youth are central to this “fall of the center,” we will discuss the concept of class. Not only academics and journalists, but even populist politicians themselves put the category “middle class” in the center of their appeal (most recently, Donald Trump pictured himself as the savior of the “disappearing middle class”). How can we test the claim that the sociological base of this new wave is indeed a class actor? Student projects will study the middle classes of particular countries, their politicization, and their contribution to mass movements and post-liberal regimes."
Muslims in America - "The course traces Islam's journey in America. It will deal with the emergence of identifiable Muslim communities throughout the U.S. and focus on patterns of migration, the ethnic makeup of such communities, gender dynamics, political identity, and cases of conversion to Islam. The course will spend considerable time on the African American, Indo-Pakistani, and Arab American Muslim communities since they constitute the largest groupings. It also examines in depth the emergence of national, regional, and local Muslim institutions, patterns of development pursued by a number of them, and levels of cooperation or antagonism. The course seeks an examination of gender relations and dynamics across the various Muslim groupings, and the internal and external factors that contribute to real and imagined crisis. The course seeks to conduct and document the growth and expansion of mosques, schools, and community centers in the greater Bay Area. Finally, no class on Islam in America would be complete without a critical examination of the impacts of 9/11 on Muslim communities, the erosion of civil rights, and the ongoing war on terrorism."
Ocean Worlds - "While oceans comprise about 71% of the surface of our planet, our imaginations of the world remain land-locked in continental and national frames. This course turns to oceanic connections, movements, livelihoods and developments to rethink the foundations of the modern world. We consider a range of oceanic themes beginning with an oceanic novel, Moby Dick; turning to exploration and imperial sovereignty over the seas; to far-flung Muslim diasporas across the Indian Ocean; to a motley and riotous Trans-Atlantic arena of seafarers, pirates, slaves and revolutionaries; to the cultures of the ‘Black Atlantic;’ to American power and the imperial Pacific; to island nations cast adrift by continental histories; to Caribbean thinkers who saw the world through its oceanic interconnections; to island prisons and forced movements of convicts, refugees and workers; to transformations of ports and shipping with the emergence of a new standardized global commodity, the container; to oceanic infrastructures like deep-sea cables, gigantic ships and mega-ports; to the discovery of vast oceanic trash dumps; to precarious livelihoods of fishing communities; to fantasy islands and tourist paradises alongside dying coral reefs; to small island states facing sea level rise as the end of national territory. We explore oceanic processes and developments, and an oceanic way of thinking, to imagine the world differently, and to imagine a different world."
The Refugee "Crisis": Itineraries and Narratives - "This course will examine the itineraries and narratives of refugees who are seeking asylum in France today. Contemporary fiction and film will help us reconstruct the stages of their flight and journey. As refugees confront the legal bureaucracy of asylum, many questions arise: What constitutes the right to asylum? When is a refugee deemed “worthy” or “unworthy”? What kinds of trauma and suffering fall under the Geneva Convention’s definition of persecution, and what forms do not? What type of evidence is required? What stories are considered persuasive or unreliable? What is the role of translation in this process? We will pay particular attention to the forms of personhood that emerge or are put into crisis by clandestine passage, extra-territorial spaces of detention and the asylum interview."
The Contours of Coexistence: 'Otherness' and Belonging in Modern Europe - "Once again, Europeans are questioning the limits of coexistence. Recently we have watched a refugee crisis unfold and in the process have reopened discussions regarding who “belongs” in Europe. This course approaches these vexing question from a unique historical perspective, that of coexistence and otherness in both the “old” and “new” Europe. Specifically our laboratory includes Poland, the Czech Republic and Germany. We will utilize five case studies (the Jews of Europe; the Roma of Northern Bohemia; the Vietnamese in Prague, the Turkish in Germany and recent refugees across the EU) to better understand how ideas of “Europe” and “Europeaness” changed over the past century." Note. This course is taken abroad and is offered through the Berkeley Summer Abroad program. For questions or information about participating, please go to http://studyabroad.berkeley.edu/summerabroad/poland-germany-czech or email summerabroad@berkeley.edu. History N174T 001.
The Middle East and North Africa After the Arab Spring - "This course examines the ways in which the youth movements, activists, bloggers, journalists, and reformists were able to play an effective role in driving some authoritarian leaders out of power in what came to be known as the "Arab Spring." This contributed to the vacuum in power in these countries, and unleashed sectarian violence on an unprecedented scale in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. The rise of Islamic State in Iraq has prompted further sectarianism and anti-Shi’ism rhetoric, posing the serious challenge of post-territorial identity in current regimes. The result has been the dissolution of order in a region that has been known for its persistent authoritarianism. These developments have presented new challenges to theoretical and comparative perspectives regarding the social movements and democratic processes in the MENA region—widely seen as political openings and new hopes for the region. In this course, we attempt to scrutinize issues such as the impact of information politics, protest, and defiance in the digital world, the nature of sectarianism, the ensuing refugee crisis, how identity travels from a passive to an active state, and the mechanisms that trigger conflict. We pay special attention to the rise of ISIS and seek to explain the need for rethinking nationalism in a region that has for decades seen artificial and unnatural states. The role of outside powers in fostering sectarian strife also will be highlighted." Jointly listed as Global Studies 154M-001 and International and Area Studies 150-005. Mahmood Monshipouri.
Migrant and Refugee Health, Italy - "The Summer School seeks to improve participants’ knowledge and understanding of the main health issues and needs of refugees and migrants, and of the broader public health and health-system implications of large-scale migration in origin, transit and destination countries. It provides a space for bridging research, policy and practice; sharing practical, real-world knowledge and experience; and fostering debate and critical thinking.
"The theme of this year’s Summer School is “Managing the public health aspects of migration”. It will include a combination of plenary presentations, workshops, interactive discussions and panels. Faculty will include international experts from different regions and disciplines relevant to the area of migration and health.
"The course includes a field trip to a point-of-entry location in Sicily known for receiving regular arrivals of refugees and migrants. The trip will provide participants with first-hand knowledge of how authorities in Italy are currently managing the public health challenges related to migration.
"Beyond the course curriculum, the Summer School also offers networking opportunities through social events and possibilities for alumni to become connected with WHO/Europe’s migration and health work through the Knowledge Hub on Health and Migration and other ongoing activities."
Migration and Mobility in the Viking Age: Global Perspectives - "Migration and travel have fundamentally shaped human history from its very beginnings. Whether forced or voluntary, human mobility across the globe has led to some definitive, transformative ruptures in history, from the Indo-Aryan migration from the Indus Valley, the expansion of the Mongols, invasions of the Roman Empire, the displacement of Africans in the Atlantic slave trade, and the recent forced relocation of thousands of Syrian refugees. The age of the Vikings, perhaps the most popularized moment of migration from Scandinavia, shares this long history of human mobility and cross-cultural exchanges. This course will introduce students to the ways in which scholars ask questions, read and evaluate sources, and construct arguments. Acquiring training in textual analysis and argumentative writing, students will study the movement of people during the Viking Age, from trading and pilgrimage, to raiding and settlement. The course will explore a range of interdisciplinary approaches to history, including historical and literary sources, archaeological evidence, and scientific techniques, and will demonstrate how such evidence can be applied in academic papers. Through discussion of the motivations for travel and migration, our aim is to develop persuasive writing and to think critically about historical studies and their practical applications in our world today." Scandinavian Studies R5B-102.
Contemporary Immigration in Global Perspective - "The goal of this course is to introduce students to important academic and political debates around immigration, to discuss processes of immigration, integration and exclusion in different national and cultural contexts, and to look at how the question of immigration plays out in different social and political areas." Sociology 146-001.
Ethics and Justice in International Affairs - "Should nations intervene in other countries to prevent human rights abuses or famine? On what principles should immigration be based? Should wealthy states aid poorer states, and if so, how much? Who should pay for global environmental damage? Answers to these moral questions depend to a great degree on who we believe we have an obligation to: Ourselves? Nationals of our country? Residents of our country? Everyone in the world equally? We will examine different traditions of moral thought including skeptics, communitarians, cosmopolitans, and use these traditions as tools to make reasoned judgments about difficult moral problems in world politics." Political Science 124C-001.
Ethnic and Religious Conflict - "Violent ethnic and religious conflict is the defining tragedy of today’s world. Religious conflict rages in Africa. Turkey is at war with the Kurds. Sectarian violence has torn a swath through the Middle East. From Scotland to Spain, separatist movements simmer throughout Europe. In Germany, neo-Nazi groups attack Syrian refugee camps, and ethnic and religious tensions are on the rise in asylum shelters. What are the causes of these and other conflicts? How can they be resolved? The seminar will provide an analytic “toolkit” to address these questions and students will research and write on a conflict of their choosing." International and Area Studies 194-002.
German Exile in Cinema: Film Noir - "This course deals with American crime films of the 1940s made by German filmmakers in Hollywood who were refugees from Nazi persecution. Their “dark” films about urban corruption and moral ambiguity introduced a creative counter-tradition to the American entertainment industry. Stylistically indebted to German Expressionist cinema of the 1920s, film noir also conveyed the mood of dislocation, disillusionment, and alienation prevalent among German exiles. The course will focus on the modernist forms and philosophical undercurrents of these films and place them within larger political and cultural discourses of life in 1940s America. We’ll examine how the genre of film noir addresses social issues of the time: crime, law, justice, and the power of the state; the psychological effects of the war; class, gender, and the crisis of the ‘American Dream’. Films include noir classics like Fritz Lang’s Scarlet Street, Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and Sunset Boulevard, Robert Siodmak’s The Killers, and Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour, among others." German 182-001. Anton Kaes.
Globalization - "How and why are geographical patterns of employment, production, and consumption unstable in the contemporary world? What are the consequences of NAFTA, an expanded European Community, and post-colonial migration flows? How is global restructuring culturally reworked locally and nationally?" Geography 20-001.
Immigrants and Refugees in the US - "Overview of immigration policy in the U.S. from an international and historical perspective. Theories of migration, transnationalism, and adaptation will be addressed, along with skills required for working with refugees and immigrants facing difficulties. Addresses the impact of policy on who comes to the U.S. and the circumstances newcomers and their families face once here." Social Welfare 274-001.
Immigration and Citizenship - "We often hear that America is a "nation of immigrants." This representation of the U.S. does not explain why some are presumed to belong and others are not. We will examine both historical and contemporary law of immigration and citizenship to see how law has shaped national identity and the identity of immigrant communities. In addition to scholarly texts, we will read and analyze excerpts of cases and the statute that governs immigration and citizenship, the Immigration and Nationality Act." Legal Studies 132AC-001.
Islamophobia and Constructing Otherness - "This course will examine and attempt to understand Islamophobia, as the most recently articulated principle of otherness and its implications domestically and globally. The course will also closely examine the ideological and epistemological frameworks employed in discourses of otherness, and the complex social, political, economic, gender-based, and religious forces entangled in its historical and modern reproduction." Asian American Studies 132AC-001.
Mapping Diasporas - "In the course of the last semester, students in Mapping Diasporas met with five refugees, and interviewed them about their memory objects. Memory objects are objects held and cherished by displaced people, and that end up symbolizing concepts of “home” and “identity,” and that also carry innumerable layers of memory and feelings. The are tangible artifacts composing an archive of the invisible.
"The refugees who visited with our class all live in the Bay Area, are approximately the same age as the students in the class, and—with the sole important exception of a man who left Nazi Germany in the 1930s as a child—have been recently relocated here. They were recruited by a member of the Mapping Diasporas working group, documentary film-maker Sam Ball (of Citizen Film). Several of them settled in the Bay Area through the fantastic work of the staff and volunteers of the Refugee & Immigrant Services at Jewish Family and Community Services of the East Bay." Theater 121 - as part of Digital Humanities Special Topics Seminars. Watch one of the products of the class, Golden Magic Shoes., a film focussing on Zander, an LGBT refugee from Uganda now living in Berkeley.
Middle East In Global Context - "This course provides Global Studies majors with an introduction to the Middle East region, broadly defined. It takes an interdisciplinary approach, joining the fields of history, political science, anthropology, religious studies, economics, and Middle Eastern studies. Students will be introduced to major historical themes in the study of Middle Eastern societies that are relevant in understanding contemporary intellectual debates and the origins, nature, and trajectory of war and peace in the region. Focusing on the 20th century, the course explores how the modern Middle East evolved politically, socially, and economically into a region burdened by webs of power and influence." Global Studies 110M-001.
Stevens Global Ambassadors Project: Public Health and Conflict in the Middle East - " Conducted in tandem with leading educational institutions in the Middle East and North Africa, this project-based virtual exchange course will offer students the unique opportunity to experience a meaningful cross-cultural exchange while learning about the public health implications of conflict and forced migration. Looking specifically at public health issues related to recent conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa (i.e. the Iraq War and the Syrian Refugee Crisis), the course will be comprised primarily of case studies and an inter-disciplinary project, in which interdisciplinary and intercultural student groups seek to identify and intervene in a relevant public health issue." Middle Eastern Studies 199-01.
Texts on the Move: Literature and (E)migration- "To emigrate, Salman Rushdie asserts in his Imaginary Homelands, means “to lose language and home, to be defined by others, to become invisible, or, even worse, a target; it is to experience deep changes and wrenches in the soul.” Meanwhile, he goes on to posit, “the migrant is not simply transformed by [this] act; he transforms his new world” (210). Trans-national migration and displacement have profoundly shaped world literature, both thematically and practically. This course investigates both texts produced in diasporas and texts that piercingly dramatize the varied experiences of shifting homelands. We will consider primarily 20th and 21st century émigré fiction, with reference to important literary precursors. The course will focus on a number of themes, including: historical upheaval and contexts of migration, the notion of physical and conceptual borders and their solidity or porousness, the relationship between self and homeland, the role of language and silence in understanding and representing identity, migrants and/versus refugees, mobility and rights, intergenerational trauma and memory, imaginative geography, race and ethnicity, globalization and multiculturalism, and the possibilities and limitations for hybrid or multiple identities that are worked out in the literature of migration." Slavic Languages R5B 001.
Travel, Captivity, and Refuge in the Early Modern World - "Most of us have at one time been travelers. For the sake of curiosity and ambition, necessity and desperation, we leave home and cross into unfamiliar worlds. This course will examine the history of travel from the sixteenth through the eighteenth centuries. During this period, European imperialism, religious conflict and the rise of global markets propelled more people to travel further than ever before. We will follow explorers and soldiers, diplomats and refugees, captives, sailors, and scientists as they voyaged through the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Throughout a range of travel narratives and secondary sources, our class will focus on three main questions. To what extent could early modern travelers recognize and understand the foreign cultures and people they encountered? How did class, race, gender and religion shape these encounters? Did travel transform the travelers? We will work together each week to critically analyze the readings and discuss approaches to historical research and writing, and we will devote several meetings to peer reviews and writing workshops." History R1B-002. Hayley Rucker.
Undocumented Subjects: Performance and Immigration in/outside the United States - "This course explores how performance practices and performance discourse intersect with immigration discourse in local, national, and international spheres. We consider how immigration discourses are staged by various subjects and institutions, and examine the visual, linguistic, and performative representations used. In particular, we analyze and write about performances that deal with issues about being undocumented. We will assess how writing about performance provides others frames for understanding the undocumented experience. We give attention to our writing in this course since we will be developing specialized skills and a language to talk about performance. Throughout the course, we will discuss the intersections of race, gender, and class within immigration. We will deal with literary and visual materials representing violence, death, and sex." Theater R1B-002.
Contemporary Issues of Southeast Asian Refugees in the U.S - "This course will introduce students to the sociocultural, economic, educational, and political issues facing Southeast Asian refugees in the U.S. While the course focus is on the Asian American experience, references will be made to the pre-migration experiences and histories of the Southeast Asian refugee groups. The processes and problems in the formulation of refugee programs and services in the U.S. also will be addressed in their implications for refugee resettlement and adaptation experience. Emphasis will be placed on comparative analyses of the Southeast Asian refugee communities." Asian American Studies 125-001.
Cultural Forms of Testimony — From the Shoah to the Current Refugee Crisis - "How do the poetics of testimony forged in a postwar culture of trauma and witnessing affect contemporary frameworks for envisioning today’s refugee crisis? Theoretical writings (by Adorno, Arendt, Agamben, Derrida, Didier and Eric Fassin, Lanzmann, Rancière) will help us tease out some continuities and discontinuities between postwar debates on representation- in the artistic sense and the juridico-political sense- and contemporary reflections on the refugee crisis. We will examine a range of cultural production, including literature and visual media, to explore the following questions: To what extent does testimony- in the form of “bearing witness” to one’s own history or that of others- constitute a genre whose effects shape, if not produce, truth, identity and authority? Is testimony exclusively the province of the victim? How can we “site” the refugee in geopolitical and conceptual terms? How pertinent is the concentrationary history for thinking about refugees today? How do we discuss the relationship between bearing witness and the transformation of such witnessing into aesthetic form? To what extent can cultural frames put pressure on or re-envision existing politics of representation and protection? What are some possible relations between hospitality and artistic form?" French 260A-001.
Cultural Representations of Asylum in France - "This course investigates the itineraries and narratives of refugees who are seeking asylum in France today. Contemporary fiction and film will help us reconstruct aspects of a refugee’s flight from unlivable conditions and chart their perilous journey across land and sea into France. We will pay particular attention to the forms of personhood that emerge or are put into crisis by such experiences as clandestine passage, detention, surveillance and deportation, the stages of an asylum application, undocumented labor, etc. We will also consider the importance of narrative in organizing histories and selves in ways that are audible and visible for their place of sanctuary. These questions are pursued through readings of literature, cinema, testimony, theory and the press." French 183A-001.
Diaspora, Border, and Transnational Identities - "This course will study debates around the notions of home, location, migrancy, mobility, and dislocation by focusing on issues of gender and sexuality. We will examine the ways in which various cultural flows have fundamentally challenged and changed the nature of global economy by expanding mobility of capital, labor, and systems of representations in a transnational context. We will also look at the impact of new technologies in production, distribution, communication, and circulation of cultural meanings and social identites by linking nationalism, immigration, diaspora, and globalization to the process of subject formation in a postcolonial context."
Health and Human Rights - "The course examines the origins of health and human rights concerns and outlines a conceptual basis for human rights among health professionals. It provides an overview of the epidemiology of human rights violations worldwide and an analysis of the psychology of abuse. The course considers the role of health professionals in (1) documenting the health and social consequences of human rights violations and war; (2) treating survivors of abuse; (3) addressing specific human rights concerns of women and children; (4) identifying the impact of health policy on human rights; and (5) participating in human rights education and advocacy. The course will also examine issues of universality of human rights and cultural relativism and the role of accountability for the past abuses in prevention." Public Health 211-001.
The History and Practice of Human Rights - "What are human rights? Where did they originate and when? Who retains them, and when are we obliged to defend them? Through what kinds of institutions, practices, and frameworks have they been advocated and affirmed? And which are the human rights that we take to be self evident? The rights to speak and worship freely? To legal process? To shelter and nourishment? Do our human rights include high-speed internet access, as one Scandinavian country has recently proposed? Can human rights ever be global in scope? Or is the idea of universal human rights a delusion or, worse, a manifestation of cultural chauvinism? History will not answer these questions for us, but historical understanding can help us answer them for ourselves. “The History and Practice of Human Rights” examines the historical development of human rights to the present day, focusing on, but not confined to, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. While the idiom of human rights is frequently legalistic, we will ask how the idea of human rights might depend upon humanistic modes of comprehension and communication such as film, literature, music, and the arts: media that can stretch the horizons of elastic human empathy. More than a history of origins, however, this course will contemplate the relationships between human rights and other crucial themes in the history of the modern era, including revolution, imperialism, racism and genocide. Why, we must ask, did an era of recurrent and catastrophic political violence produce a language of universal human rights? Looking forward, can the proponents of human rights offer a redemptive alternative to twentieth centuryʼs catastrophes, or are human rights themselves another false utopia?" Letters & Science C140V-001.
Immigrants in the U.S. and the Legal Challenges They Face - "In this course, we will begin to understand U.S. immigration law by more closely examining two groups of immigrants: refugees and undocumented youth. Focusing first on refugees who come to the U.S. seeking asylum, you will learn about the legal process they must navigate, consider arguments for why the current system is unjust, and examine possibilities for reform. In the latter part of the course, we will turn to a second group: undocumented youth, particularly high school and college students, and we will examine the strategies they have used in advocating for legal protection. Throughout this course, we will explore the challenges immigrants face in navigating the legal system, questions of membership and belonging, and the extent to which our immigration laws achieve justice." Fall Program for Freshmen - Legal Studies R1B-001.
Middle Class Radicalization Across the Globe: The Re-birth of Populism in the United States, the Middle East, Latin America and Europe - "This course will focus on the wave of radicalism that has been sweeping the globe since the late 2000s. The precursor to this global wave was the rise of populist movements and regimes in Latin America in the 1990s. After the 2008 financial crisis, revolutions and protests erupted in quite dissimilar geographies: the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street in the US, the failed Arab revolutions, horizantalist revolts in Southern Europe, ISIS in the Muslim world, and right-wing radicalization in Venezuela and Ukraine. These movements also triggered each other. Tahrir inspired Occupy. The post-Arab Spring refugee wave (and fear of Islamism) fed into further right-wing radicalization in France, Poland, Germany, and Hungary. Repeating the Latin American experience, some of these populist movements might lead to populist regimes (or at least populist political options), as the rise of Trump, Corbyn, the daughter Le Pen, Syriza, Podemos, and Sanders suggests. Since it has been frequently stated that downwardly mobile middle-class youth are central to this “fall of the center,” we will discuss the concept of class. Not only academics and journalists, but even populist politicians themselves put the category “middle class” in the center of their appeal (most recently, Donald Trump pictured himself as the savior of the “disappearing middle class”). How can we test the claim that the sociological base of this new wave is indeed a class actor? Student projects will study the middle classes of particular countries, their politicization, and their contribution to mass movements and post-liberal regimes." Sociology 190-003.
Migrants, Nomads, Expats: Tales of Mobility through the Bel Paese - "Located in the heart of the Mediterranean Sea, Italy has been a nexus of multiple forms of voyages since antiquity. From Aeneas, to the northern “barbarians,” to Marco Polo, to Renaissance maestros, to the European nobles on the Grand Tour, to American expats, and the economic migrants leaving and entering the Bel Paese, Italy has been the point of departure and arrival of a multitude of literal as well as metaphorical journeys. Some of these journeys have become central to the western imaginary, while others are symptomatic of historical and social processes that affect the world in which we live in today. In this course we will study some of those journeys, paying particular attention to narratives of mobility since the formation of the Italian state. We will focus on short stories, novels and films detailing the emigration of Italian labor at the beginning of the 20th century, as well as the narratives of immigration at its end. We will also pay attention to tales of internal movements that are not just physical but also symbolic, as well as stories of privileged western expats settling in Italy. We will, of course, couch our engagement of such texts within theories of transnationalism and cultural studies."
Muslims in America - "The course traces Islam's journey in America. It will deal with the emergence of identifiable Muslim communities throughout the U.S. and focus on patterns of migration, the ethnic makeup of such communities, gender dynamics, political identity, and cases of conversion to Islam. The course will spend considerable time on the African American, Indo-Pakistani, and Arab American Muslim communities since they constitute the largest groupings. It also examines in depth the emergence of national, regional, and local Muslim institutions, patterns of development pursued by a number of them, and levels of cooperation or antagonism. The course seeks an examination of gender relations and dynamics across the various Muslim groupings, and the internal and external factors that contribute to real and imagined crisis. The course seeks to conduct and document the growth and expansion of mosques, schools, and community centers in the greater Bay Area. Finally, no class on Islam in America would be complete without a critical examination of the impacts of 9/11 on Muslim communities, the erosion of civil rights, and the ongoing war on terrorism." Asian American Studies 128AC-001.
Refugee in German Literature - "German literature has responded to the emergence of the refugee as a unique figure of modern political life in the twentieth century. Our focus will be on literature’s use of language and genre to explore the complex states of exception bound up with the refugee phenomenon. We will consider interventions in lyric, drama, and prose, by a range of authors at different junctures in twentieth-century literary and political history, as they embark upon the many literary paths of refugees. Along the way, we will examine how these texts challenge assumptions about identity, citizenship and belonging by calling our attention to questions of voice, narrative, and witnessing." German 179-1.
The Gulf States and the Arab Spring: Vive La Revolution or Vive La Counter-Revolution? "The Gulf States seemed impermeable to the 2011 Arab uprisings but behind the scenes saw regional developments as both threat and opportunity. This course examines the Gulf States and Saudi Arabia and Qatar in particular and their roles in an ongoing struggle for the heart and soul of a region." Middle Eastern Studies 150.2, taught by Peter Bartu.
Undocumented Subjects – Performance and Immigration in/outside the United States - "This course fulfills the first half of the Reading and Composition requirement, and its objective is to assist you develop critical, reading, analytical, and compositional skills in/outside the university. This course explores how performance practices and performance discourse intersect with immigration discourse in local, national, and international spheres. We consider how immigration discourses are staged by various subjects and institutions, and examine the visual, linguistic, and performative representations used. In particular, we analyze and write about performances that deal with issues about being undocumented. We will assess how writing about performance provides others frames for understanding the undocumented experience. We give attention to our writing in this course since we will be developing specialized skills and a language to talk about performance. Throughout the course we will discus the intersections of race, gender, and class within immigration. We will deal with literary and visual materials representing violence, death, and sex.
US Foreign Policy In The Middle East - "This course covers the foreign policy of the U.S. in the Middle East with an emphasis on the last two decades. It consists of three main elements: the role of ideas and interests in shaping U.S. foreign policy; the content of the policies; and the consequences of those policies. We will also examine regional security, international development, the role of religion, technology and the Arab revolutions. The material covered will be of relevance to those looking to pursue future careers in a range of sectors including non-governmental organizations, international institutions, governmental agencies and research." Middle Eastern Studies 150-001.
"Framing Migration," German 214 P001, taught by Deniz Göktürk. "In light of the EU's and individual nation-states' policy of enforcing their borders and differentiate between "real" refugees and economic migrants, this seminar will question approaches to research on transnational mobility and cultural diversity through the lens of aesthetic interventions, moving images, and literature. Our focus will be on the role of audiovisual media in projecting and complicating social imaginaries. Theoretical texts by Adorno, Arendt, Balibar, Clifford, Hall, Roemhild, Sassen and many others will complement our diachronic analyses."
"Global Conflict and the Refugee Crisis," taught at the Berkeley Osher Lifelong Learning Institute (OLLI) by Beverly Crawford from the Center for German and European Studies. Note. There is an extensive reading list on the syllabus.
"Syrian Refugee Crisis," Development Engineering 290 P 001, taught by Kate Jastram. This course examines "the challenges facing Syrian refugees from a variety of perspectives, asking questions about international law, State responsibility, the role of development, the role of information technologies in the unfolding crisis, and the impact of gender and age on the protection needs of the refugees."
"Who defines identify? Germany's struggle with inclusivity," November 9, 2015, summary of the course on September 21 and 23 by Gradey
Last updated September 18, 2017.
Please send suggestions to Dianne Walker.