Topics vary by semester
Professor(s)
Notes
This course considers how we as humans navigate through different spaces and languages. In the case of human migration, languages often come into contact, spurring linguistic diversity and changes to speech communities. This course will address questions about language issues faced by first-generation migrants and their children, including how linguistic diversity affects access to employment, education and health care. A practical component of the course involves engaging directly with migrant communities. Two programs will be available to students enrolled in the course. One is working with students and teachers in junior high schools that welcome migrant youth and other new-comers to France, specifically those who have little to no knowledge of French language and culture. The other is a community engagement program with the Quartiers Solidaires, a group that organizes breakfast for migrants every morning from 8:30-9:30, along with other activities. This course also includes a cultural study trip to Istanbul.
Learning Outcomes
- Students will be able to identify types of local and global human movement and the causes for this movement.
- Students will be able to identify language issues related to migration.
- Students will be able to recognize and describe language diversity and relations between dominant and minority languages.
- Students will be able to analyze and explain how language contributes to the consturction of identities.
- Students will enhance their intercultural understanding of languages, cultures, and histories of local societies and the global issues to which these relate. (CCI LO1)
- Students will think critically about cultural and social difference; they will identify and understand power structures that determine hierarchies and inequalities that can relate to race, ethnicity, gender, nationhood, religion, or class. (CCI LO3)
- Students will demonstrate awareness of ethical considerations relating to specific societal problems, values or practices (whether historical or contemporary, global or local) and learn to articulate possible solutions to prominent challenges facing societies and institutions today so as to become an engaged actor across various levels of our interconnected world. (CCI LO4)
- Students will enhance their understanding of the complexities and challenges of real-world concerns and their creative capacity to address them. (CCX LO1)
- Students will interpret intercultural experience from the perspectives of more than one worldview and demonstrate the ability to initiate and develop interaction with cultural difference. (CCX LO2)
- Students will engage in the self-assessment, reflection and analysis of this experience, preparing them for future success, and will be able to articulate this to future educational and professional interlocutors. (CCX LO3)
- Students will be able to position themselves critically in relation to these concerns, considering the efficacy, consequences and ethical dimensions of their actions in a given place and context. (CCX LO4)
Syllabus
Book List
| Title | Author | Publisher | ISBN Number |
|---|---|---|---|
Go, Went, Gone | Jenny Erpenbeck, translated by Susan Bernofsky | New Directions Publishing | 9780811225946 |
Schedule
| Day | Start Time | End Time | Room |
|---|---|---|---|
Tuesday | 15:20 | 16:40 | SD-3 |
Friday | 15:20 | 16:40 | SD-3 |