Diasporas/Diasporic Cultures
As the migration of peoples and cultures across
borders has accelerated, the growing interdisciplinary field of diaspora
studies has provided a much needed examination of the structural features
that characterize these movements. While scholars agree that not all
migrations can be considered diasporas, the term diaspora nonetheless
remains a fluid one. The word's ancient Greek root connotes simply migration
and colonization. Since 1700, however, the term has collected valences
implying forced migration, shared community in foreign nations, and
collective desire to return to an existent or imagined homeland. The
exile of Armenians and Jews have provided the classic models through
which European and American academies have investigated the term diaspora.
More recently, the concept of diaspora has come to include a wider group
of migrations and oppressions, including that of enslaved Africans shipped
to the Americas, Palestinian Arabs, and Turkish guest workers in Germany,
to name but a few.
The utility of employing diaspora as conceptual
rubric through which to understand a diverse set of migrations lies
in the fact that diaspora troubles the stability of concepts such as
nation-state, citizenship, and empire. Much, of course, distinguishes
the multiple exiles of the Jews from the slave trade of the 18th and
19th centuries, and the dispersal of Armenians from the "trade diasporas"
that force floods of people across national borders in search of work
unavailable at home. Yet the project of examining these diasporic histories
in relation to one another forces us to engage questions about what
constitutes "voluntary" migration, political oppression, and exile--questions
that are in turn central to debates around refugee status, ethnic nationalism,
and global capital.
In addition to raising questions about
political economy, diasporic communities have significantly altered
how we understand cultural memory. Shared stories about an original
homeland and the events that caused exile from it are central features
for diasporic populations. The transmission of cultural memory in new
contexts has spawned innovative modes of artistic production and ritual,
as well as new forms of community interaction. Moreover, as diasporic
cultures evolve over time, the traditions of the diaspora are no longer
necessarily identical to those at the time of migration; nor are they
identical across different segments of the community living in different
parts of the globe.
What does community mean when it is conceived
across national boundaries? How do differences in how nations conceive
of statehood and citizenship affect exiled populations? What happens
as a culture tries to enunciate itself from a transnational setting?
Our seminar will focus on the diasporas of Greek, Jewish, Armenian,
and African-American populations, in addition to considering how globalization
has reshaped mass migrations of people in the late-nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Speakers will include Prasenjit Duara (History and East Asian
Languages and Civilizations), Jonathan Hall (History and Classics),
Paul Mendes-Flohr (Divinity School), Khachig Tololyan (English, Wesleyan
University), and Ken Warren (English).
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University of Chicago