Minority and Migration Studies

Faculty teach and conduct research on refugees, migrants and minorities within nation states and in multicultural regions. Undergraduate courses on migration and refugees in the Mediterranean are offered both on campus and as faculty-led study abroad programs in Italy. Graduate students at all levels are encouraged to take classes and work on projects on the critical exploration of human mobility in the context of a globalized world. Most of the courses in Italian literature and culture explore the question of multiculturalism in Italy and the difficult post-colonial Italian identity. A course on the relationship between Italian Americans and African Americans discusses the question of Italian Americans' ethnic identity in the U.S.  Undergraduate and graduate courses in French discuss historical and present-day struggles of ethnolinguistic minorities in France and Europe, post-colonial literatures and cultures, immigration, and race-relations in 20th- and 21st-century France. An undergraduate course, tracing the journey of Acadians from the maritime provinces of 18^th-century New France to their settlements in Louisiana, examines the artefacts of French, Acadian, Cajun heritage in North America.