Forms of Migration in 21st Century Literature

Forms of Migration in 21st Century Literature combines migration studies, cultural memory studies, and literary studies to ask: what kind of literature shapes our understanding of migration? My overall objective is to demonstrate that contemporary im/migrant literature uses new ways of writing (storytelling). This project links the tools of storytelling to the specific social-political-economic conditions of migration and movement by integrating migration studies with areas studies and literary studies. These fields are related but often disconnected from each other. I compare contemporary books about memory, movement and migration by authors from southeastern Europe, the Turkish diaspora, and North American minorities. I argue that current global changes, such as the refugee crisis in Europe, rising nationalism and populist movements, and terrorist attacks directly influence how we tell stories about migration, as well as who listens to or reads these stories. In todays world, its increasingly important to understand how different cultures interact. New identities and cultures are emerging everyday as the result of international movement and mixing. By selecting books written by and about different im/migrant communities from around the world, my project addresses the need for cross-cultural studies that will help us understand our new global conditions. My project will be the first to combine fiction, poetry, and texts that fall somewhere in-between as part of my study. To bring together the study of literature to real world conditions, I use historical and social scientific studies on migrant communities to place books and their authors within specific contexts. Additionally, this project involves local and international outreach-oriented activities to investigate how these new forms of writing are created and received by different audiences, including the greater Graz community. At a moment when issues of migration and integration are important to national agendas in the European Union, Turkey, and the United States, my project joins an exciting group of new studies that seek to uncover connections and disconnections between migration and memory in literary studies across these geographies.

The project's goal was to generate attention to literature by immigrants. Specifically, I am interested in different styles of writing, especially experimental styles. My project consisted of scholarly research, in the form of journal articles and progress on an academic book, as well as events intended to bring larger and more diverse audiences in contact with immigrant writers. I completed 3 scholarly articles and 1 book chapter. Events included organizing an international conference in Graz, organizing public performance event at a local gallery in Graz, as well as guest lectures. I also began building a transnational research network for interdisciplinary migration studies. My main research focused on transnational, experimental poetry by women poets in the U.S.A. I studied experimental styles of women's poetry to show how they contribute to the field of transnational feminist theory. I surveyed 10 texts considered to be representative of transnational feminist theory and found that less than 5% of the total content dealt primarily with some aspect of poetry. Most theorists prefer to discuss autobiography, essays, and fiction. I argued that such scant attention to poetry is ironic because the foundational books in transnational feminist theory are, or are inspired by, works of poetry or a mix of poetry and other styles of writing. These findings are the starting point for my academic book project. In my book, I will discuss a few transnational poetry collections that I believe contribute to the goals of transnational feminism. The Graz-based international conference on migration studies that I organized in 2019 was the first of its kind. This is because we shared work on different migrant communities from around the world and instead of focusing solely on political questions, we combined politics with discussions on the different styles migrant writers and artists use in their work. The conference attracted over forty participants from five continents and more than a dozen countries. When the conference program was published on Academia.edu, the leading online networking and knowledge-sharing platform for researchers, we trended in the top 2% of documents viewed that week. From this conference, I am developing the Forms of Migration Research Collective (FMRC). The FMRC will continue to promote events, scholarship and art that ask: what kind of narratives are shaping our understanding of the dynamics and identities involved in and around transnational migration processes? As part of the conference, I organized an off-site event for the Graz community. We brought 5 immigrant writers and artists to Graz to perform at the Grazer Kunstverein, a local gallery. Our well-attended and fun event gave many different kinds of people a chance to interact with immigrant writers, raising awareness around the cultural contributions of migrants around the world.