Fall 2006

History 319: Migration in Twentieth Century Europe

 

Annemarie Sammartino

Rice Hall 311

Email: annemarie.sammartino@oberlin.edu

Office phone: 775-6572

Office Hours: Monday 10-12; Wednesday 11-12

 

Course Description

 

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has referred to the twentieth century as the century of the refugee. In the century that just ended, wars, revolutions, decolonization, and economic globalization have uprooted and displaced millions of people worldwide. Migrations have not only been a tragic and inescapable phenomenon of the past hundred years, but some scholars have argued that the 20^th century migrations have been important constitutory element of modernity. This course will examine migration in 20^th century Europe—looking at topics ranging from the “first modern refugee crisis” in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution to contemporary debates about immigration in the European Union. We will also spend time analyzing European responses to migration from former colonies and labor migration through the lens of the Turkish “guestworkers” in post-war Germany. Throughout, we will be questioning the various meanings assigned to migration throughout this period as well as the evolution of notions of belonging in societies confronted with different kinds of migrants.

 

This class will be run in a seminar. That means that your informed and engaged discussion is crucial to the success of this class.

 

Requirements and Prerequisites

 

This is an advanced seminar. Ideally, you will have taken not only History 102 (or its AP equivalent) but also have some familiarity with the history of 20^th century Europe (especially the history of Europe, post-1945). If this is not the case, please see me so I can recommend additional readings to bring you up to speed.

 

Your grade will be determined according to the following formula:

 

35%     Participation

15%     Response Papers

15%     “Your Session”—paper, reading questions, discussion introduction

30%     Final Paper

5%       Final Paper Draft

 

All written work must be completed in order to receive credit for this course.

 

You must attend every class during this semester. If you miss one meeting of the seminar, you can make this up by writing a five-page response paper on the readings for the class that you missed and turning this paper in before the next class meeting. Any additional absences will lead to a 1/6^th reduction in the final grade for the course. If you need to miss a class due to a medical or other emergency, you must provide adequate documentation (such as a doctor’s note) to avoid the absence penalty.

 

Over the course of the semester, you will be writing response papers for 9 class sessions of your choice. These response papers should be 2 pages long, and engage with the author whom we have read for that week. At the end of the response paper, you should include at least three discussion questions. You are required to turn in your response paper on Monday at 5pm before each class meeting to both me and (if applicable) the presenter for that week. Response papers will be graded on a √-, √, √+ system and will be returned to you at the start of each class.

 

15% of your grade is based on “your” class session. Once during the semester, you will be responsible for sending out reading questions over email to the class on the Friday before we meet. You will also turn in by noon on the day of your presentation a 1-2 page hand-out on the presentation topic noted on the syllabus. I will copy this handout and distribute it to the class. In class, you will introduce the reading and start the discussion. After this class session, you will have two weeks to write a five page paper based on the readings and discussion for that class session. While it is not required, it is recommended that you meet with me on the Monday (i.e. the day before) of the week that you present.

 

35% of your grade is based on a 10-page paper on a topic of your choice. A draft of this paper is due on December 5^th. This draft must first be turned in to me and your reading group. The reading group consists of 3 people. You must comment on the papers of others in your group between the time you turn in drafts and the last class. Our last classes will involve presenting your paper to the rest of the class. A portion of your own paper grade will be determined by your comments on the other drafts in your reading group. We will talk more about this paper as the semester progresses.

 

If you turn in one of these longer papers late (either the final version or the draft), it will be marked down 1/3 of a grade for each day it is late. If there is a genuine emergency (you know what a genuine emergency is…), let me know as soon as possible and we can try to work something out. Ultimately, any extension is entirely up to my discretion. You have the option to turn one response paper in late (by late, I mean in class on the day of discussion, no later). These papers are crucial means for you to prepare for class discussion, thus, after this one late paper, no other late response papers will not be accepted. In other words, you can miss response papers for two weeks, and turn in an additional response paper “late” without penalty. The remaining response papers must be turned in by Monday at 5pm the day before our discussion. For each response paper you miss (beyond these exceptions), your grade for the class will be lowered by 1/6^th of a grade (i.e. if you miss two, your grade for the class will go down 1/3^rd of a grade).

 

All work for this class is governed by the honor code. You must write and sign the honor code pledge at the end of each assignment. We will talk briefly about the honor code in class, but if you have further questions, please go to: http://www.oberlin.edu/students/student_pages/honor_code.html.

 

 

Texts Available for Purchase

 

Peter Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia During World War I (Bloomington: Indiana UP, 2001).

Faiza Guene, Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow (New York: Harvest Books, 2006).

David Horrocks and Eva Kolinsky, eds., Turkish Culture in German Society Today (New York: Berghahn Books, 1998).

Milan Kundera, Ignorance (New York: Harper Collins Perennial, 2003).

Jeffrey Peck, Being Jewish in the New Germany (New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2006).

Zadie Smith, White Teeth (New York: Random House, 2000).

Mark Wyman, DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons 1945-1951 (Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1998).

 

All texts available for purchase are also on reserve.

 

Readings placed on ERes are marked with an asterisk. Additionally several readings are available through the OhioLink Electronic Journals Collection (EJC) or JSTOR. There are several ways to reference these readings, the easiest is through a title search for the journal in Obis.

 

There are several movie screenings that are also required for this class. These films are considered part of the required texts for the course. If you cannot meet during the scheduled time, it is your responsibility to find a way to watch the film before you do your response paper on this topic.

 

Schedule of Topics and Readings

 

September 5: Introduction

 

September 12: World War I

 

Peter Gatrell, A Whole Empire Walking: Refugees in Russia During World War I.

 

Presentation: World War I on the Eastern Front

 

September 19: Interwar Refugees

 

*Hannah Arendt, “The Decline of the Nation-State and the End of the Rights of Man,” in The Origins of Totalitarianism (New York: Harper & Row, 1951), 267-302

 

Clifford Rosenberg, Policing Paris, 1-14; 44-106; 153-198

 

*Ari Sammartino, “Suffering, Tolerance and the Nation: Asylum and Citizenship Policy in the Weimar Republic,” Bulletin of the German Historical Institute 32, Spring 2003: 103-115.

 

Presentation: Versailles Treaty & The Russian Revolution

 

September 26: 1945—Population “Transfer”

 

#Eagle Glassheim, "National Mythologies and Ethnic Cleansing: The Expulsion of Czechoslovak Germans in 1945," Central European History, vol. 33, no. 4 (2000).

 

*Benjamin Frommer, “To Prosecute or to Expel? Czechoslovak Retribution and the ‘Transfer’ of Sudeten Germans,” Phillip Ther, and Ana Siljak, eds, Redrawing Nations: Ethnic Cleansing in East-Central Europe, 1944-1948: 221-240.

 

Presentation: WWII Nazi Population Policies

 

October 3: 1945—Displaced Persons

 

Mark Wyman, DPs: Europe’s Displaced Persons 1945-1951

 

Presentation: The US and the Holocaust

 

October 10: Gastarbeiter in Germany

 

David Horrocks, Eva Kolinsky, Turkish Culture in German Society Today, selections

 

Film: Angst essen Seele auf (1974)

 

Presentation: German Citizenship Law (historical perspective)

 

FALL BREAK

 

October 24: Postcolonial London, pt. I

 

*Paul Gilroy, There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack, 72-152

 

Enoch Powell, “‘Rivers of Blood’ Speech” (1968)

http://theoccidentalquarterly.com/vol1no1/ep-rivers.html

 

Margaret Thatcher, “Interview for Granada World in Action,” (1975)

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=102450

 

Margaret Thatcher, “Speech to the Conservative Rally in Birmingham” (1979)

http://www.margaretthatcher.org/speeches/displaydocument.asp?docid=104026

 

Presentation: Migration to Britain, 1945-1968

 

October 31: Postcolonial London, pt. II

 

Zadie Smith, White Teeth

 

Presentation: Migration to Britain, 1968-present

 

November 7: Postcolonial Paris

 

Faiza Guene, Kiffe Kiffe Tomorrow

 

Film: L’Haine (Hate) (1995)

 

Presentation: Post-Colonial Migration to France

 

November 14: Jews in Germany

 

Jeffrey Peck, Being Jewish in the New Germany

 

Presentation: Jewish Migration from the Soviet Union

 

November 21: Forced Migration & Prostitution

 

*Sietske Altink, Stolen Lives. Trading Women Into Sex and Slavery (London and New York 1995): 1-40; 55-86; 114-132.

 

Presentation: Anti-Trafficking Organizations

 

November 28: Migration as Reality/Migration as Metaphor

 

Milan Kundera, Ignorance (New York: Harper Collins Perennial, 2003).

 

Presentation: 1968 & 1989 in Eastern Europe

 

December 5: Paper Presentations

PAPER DRAFTS DUE

 

December 12: Paper Presentations

Return peer reviewed papers (with comments)