Citizenship has seen a revival as an analytical category in American Studies, as Katja Sarkowsky and Ina Batzke point out in a recent journal article. Narratives about national membership, normative models of the citizen and their negotiation in literature, and civic myths about what a “good American citizen” is, raise questions about citizenship and belonging that in a globalized world are of pressing importance. What does it mean to be American? How is citizenship defined, and who defines it? And how is this definition shaped by our relationships to other human beings? This course will consider the concept of citizenship by examining how writers have used literature to represent and think the meaning of nationhood, race, migration, and belonging. We will discuss texts by Phillis Wheatley, Walt Whitman, Claude McKay, and James Baldwin, along with more recent writings and critical essays on the concept of citizenship.
- Trainer/in: Gabriele Pisarz-Ramirez