Narrating Immigration Control

“The passport is the noblest part of a human being,” wrote the German exiled writer Bertolt Brecht in the late 1930s. When millions fled Nazi political and racial persecution, and before any country had a designated refugee policy, the immigration and identification system of control as we know it today was relatively new. For the refugees, having the right papers meant a difference between life and death. Visas, passports, and other documents also began to appear in Hollywood films, novels, and critical writing. Almost a century later, Germany, now a destination for refugees from other, war-ridden regions, is still ruled by papers. In this seminar, we will read and watch refugee narratives from these two biggest “refugee crises” in human history. We will study shifting refugee policies and bureaucratic practices along with their roles in cultural imaginations. We will trace the history of passports, visas, and identification as integral to the development of the modern state, and examine their symbolic values in a variety of aesthetic mediums, such as literature, film, dance, and video games.